
I 



The Country School 



by 
Clifton Johnson 



With Illustrations 
by the Author 



New York 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

Publishers 



LIBHARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cnole* Received 

SEP 16 \90r 

Copyrieht Bntry 

CLASiA xxc, Nb. 

COPY B. 



Copyright, 1907, 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



Published, September, 1907 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

THIS book is in no sense a history of education, 
but is an attempt to present intimately and 
clearly the salient features of the schools of the 
last century in their more picturesque and poetic aspects. 
I do not deal with theories or ideals or technical details, 
but portray those things which linger in the memory of 
whoever has attended such schools. The charm of the 
old school days never wears off — and it is the charm 
that dwells in one's remembrance, even if there was 
some bitter mixed with the sweet. My endeavor has 
simply been to make this mystic and delectable past 
alive once more. 

The material is not a compilation from other books, 
but is based entirely on personal experiences, in part 
my own, but more largely those of friends and acquaint- 
ances. Some of these friends and acquaintances are 
no longer living, and the reminiscences of the earlier 
schools with which they supplied me it would be diffi- 
cult again to dupUcate. 

In addition to the descriptions of characteristic schools, 
I devote a chapter to verbatim compositions and defini- 
tions which seem to me to have an unconscious humor 



iv Introductory Note 

that is exceedingly attractive. Lastly, there is a chapter 
containing two schoolhouse dialogues. These were 
written for the occasions when they were produced, and 
they have a kind of rude and rustic individuality which 
made them quite successful, and I think they will prove 
entertaining to a much larger public. 

CLIFTON JOHNSON. 

Hadley, Massachusetts. 



CONTENTS 

I 

PAGE 

Old-fashioned School Days, 1800 to 1830 — Winter . i 

II 
Old-fashioned School Days — Summer . . . 24 

HI 

The Schools between 1830 and i860 .... 42 

IV 
Later Characteristics, i860 to 1900 .... 79 

V 
How the Scholars Think and Write . . . .114 

VI 
Schoolhouse EntertaiNxMents 142 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The end of the day . 

Schoolgirls .... 

a little red schoolhouse 

Getting the teacher's help in a hard probi 

A visit from the school committee-man 

Telling grandma about the day at school 

Getting his arithmetic lesson 

Starting for school . 

Snowballing .... 

A drawing by one of the school children 

Learning her lesson at home . 

The road to learning 

A play-school in the hayfield 

A recitation in arithmetic 

"Wrastling" .... 

Planting flower-seeds 

The end of recess 

An excuse for being late 

A holiday — playing at gypsies 

The teacher going home . 

On the way to school 



Frontispiece 



opposite 
opposite 



opposite 



opposite 



lO 

14 
18 
20 
22 
23 
25 
27 
28 

30 
31 
33 

37 

38 
40 

41 
44 



Vlll 



Illustrations 



opposite 

opposite 
opposite 

opposite 



An old-time schoolgirl costume 

Enjoying a Saturday holiday 

The school at work 

Passing the water 

Gymnastics . 

A present . 

After school 

Ready for school 

Out at little recess 

Loitering on the way home from school 

a punishment 

The boys of the school go for a boat-ride 
Playing drop the handkerchief .... 

In the meadow at recess 

a schoolboy 

The Riverbend schoolhouse .... 

The commonest type of the country schoolhouse 

Sharpening his slate pencil . 

A class in geography 

Going to school with the teacher 

A schoolyard game of tag 

Starting the fire .... 

First day — waiting for the teacher 

Cubbyhouse dolls .... 

A hard sum 

A DRINK from a stream ON THE WAY HOME FROM SCHOOL 





64 

86 




87 


opposite 


88 




90 




93 




95 


opposite 


96 



46 

47 
48- 

51 
54 
56 
58 
60 

63 
67 

69 

70^ 

75 

78 

80 

81 

83 



Illustrations 



IX 



LS 



The youngest scholar 

Doing arithmetic examples 

A New England academy 

Sharpening one of the children's penc 

A rainy-day school at home . 

The class in the Fifth Reader 

The good boy who is allowed to study 

Writing 

The looking-glass in the entry 

The second class in reading . 

Tommy's ship .... 

An illustration by one of the little girls 

A hillside schoolhouse . 

The Primer class 

When the door is locked 

Helping a little one on with her things 

The teacher gives one of the boys a shaking 

by the boy) 

Out camping. —A story . 

A schoolboy . • . • 

The school on skates 

Facsimile of one of the youngest 

script 

The perils of the early settlers . 

The schoolhouse in flood-time 

A hay field ..... 



opposite 



OF doors 



PAGE 

lOI 



opposite 

opposite 
(Drawn 



opposite 



SCHOLARS MANU- 



I02 
105 
106 ■ 
108 
III 

116 
118 
120 
121 
I 22 
124 
126 
128 

130 
132 

134 

135 

139 
140 



Illustrations 



opposite 



Blackboard drawings: "a farmer, his little girl, 

AND HIS wife'' 

Trimming the Christmas tree 
Speaking his piece 
Schoolroom decoration . 

A HUNT FOR stockings 

Making ready for Santa Claus 

The boys go to bed . 

Caught .... — 

Santa faces the audience 

Going to the woods for the Christmas tree 

Comfort by the open fire 

The children surprise their grandpas 

Companions .... 



opposite 



141 

143 

144 
144 / 
146 

147 
149 
150 

151 
152 / 

155 
156 
158 



The Country School 

I 

OLD-FASHIONED SCHOOL DAYS, 1800 to 1830 
WINTER 

THE place which I have especially in mind in 
describing school conditions early in the last 
century, is a village among the hills of western 
Massachusetts; but the characteristics I shall mention 
were much the same in all the old schools of New England 
and the states neighboring. 

One morning, if you could have looked into a certain 
hiUtop farmhouse, you would have seen Mrs. Enoch 
Hale, birch-broom in hand, sweeping her kitchen floor. 
It was the first week of December, and a brisk fire 
was burning in the cavernous fireplace. The w^oman's 
daughter was wiping off the table at the side of the room 
where she had been washing the breakfast dishes. She 
was a chubby little girl, rather small of her age, and stood 
on tiptoe while she gave the table a vigorous scouring. 

"Isn't it school-time, Betsey?" asked her mother. 



2 The Country School 

The httle girl hung the dishcloth in the back room and 
trotted into the hall where stood a solemn-faced, tall 
clock. She looked up at it earnestly a few moments, 
made some half-whispered calculations, and returned to 
the kitchen. 'Tt's twenty minutes past eight," she said 
to her mother. 

"Well," responded the woman, "change your apron 
and run along. You won't be much too soon. There's 
your dinner basket by the door. I put up your dinner 
when I cleared away the breakfast things." 

Mrs. Hale swept the dust she had brushed together 
into the fireplace and went about her other housework. 
Betsey quickly made herself ready, and soon was running 
along the highway toward the schoolhouse. The morn- 
ing was clear and cold. The sun, just above the south- 
eastern horizon, was shining brightly, and made the brown, 
frosty fields sparkle in the hght. Betsey lived more than 
a mile from the schoolhouse, and the road was a rough 
one. For a part of the way it led through the woods, but 
in the main it was bordered by open fields and shut in 
by stone walls. Betsey usually ran down the hills, and 
was pretty sure to arrive at the schoolhouse quite out of 
breath. 

Her clothing was very neat, but rude in pattern and 
extremely plain. It had all been woven, colored, and 
made up at home. She herself had done some of the 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter 3 

knitting, and had spent tiresome hours at the quill wheel 
winding thread for the loom. Her dress was woollen, 
plain and straight, with no ruffles at neck or skirt, and 




it was considerably longer than would be worn by little 
girls of her age now. Hooks and eyes served instead of 
buttons to fasten it at the back. She wore a httle blue 
and white checked cotton apron, tied at the waist. Her 



4 The Country School 

stout leather shoes were broad-soled and comfortable, 
but only ankle high. Stockings and mittens were striped 
blue and white. Over her short-cropped hair she wore 
a small white woollen blanket about a yard square. In 
her hand was the basket containing her lunch. 

When she came trotting up to the schoolhouse she found 
a dozen of her mates on the sunny side of the building 
kicking their heels against the clapboards and waiting 
for the teacher. Betsey carried her dinner basket into 
the entry and then ran out and said, "Let's play tag till 
the schoolmaster comes." 

The others agreed, and soon all were in motion, runnin^r 
dodging, and shouting till the little yard and narrow 
roadway seemed full of flying figures. 

The schoolhouse was a small, one-storv buildin<y 
brown with age. Behind, the woods came close up, 
while in front was a httle open yard which merged into 
the highway that came over the hill eastward and then 
rambled west along the level. A little walk down the 
road was a house. No other was in sight, though at least ■ 
half a dozen scattered homes lay on the farther side of 
the hill just beyond view. Opposite the schoolhouse was 
a pasture, and the children had worn a rough path through 
the grasses by the roadside on their way to and from the 
brook over the wall where they got water to drink. 
This morning the smoke was curhng up from the chim- 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter 5 

ney straight into the frosty air. The big boys took turns 
in making the fire. To-day Jonas Brill, with his coat 
tightly buttoned and the collar up, cap pulled down over 
his ears, and hands in his pockets, had come stumping 
along the hard frozen road just after sun-up. There was 
no lock to the schoolhouse — few country people at that 
time thought of locking doors — and Jonas walked right 
into the little entry. The space on one side was half- 
filled with three-foot wood. On the other side were rows 
of pegs for the pupils' hats. 

An axe was handy, and the boy proceeded to split some 



J 




A little red schoolhouse 

kindhngs. He carried an armful of these inside. Jonas 
poked among the ashes, found the coals still alive, and 



6 The Country School 

soon had a fine blaze in the big fireplace. He brought 
in more wood from the entrv' and some larger wood from 
the yard, where it had been left by the farmers of the 
district for the scholars to cut up. It was sled length 
as they left it, and it had to be cut two or three times 
before it was ready for the fireplace. Jonas chopped 
what he judged would be a day's supply, then went in 
and sat in the master's chair by the fire and made himself 
comfortable, awaiting the arrival of his schoolmates. 

The room was plain and bare — no pictures, no maps, 
not even a blackboard. The w^alls were sheathed with 
wooden panels, but the ceiling was plastered. On each 
side, to the north and south, was a window, and at the back 
two. The fireplace was on the fourth side, projecting 
somewhat into the room. To the right of it was the en- 
trance, and to the left was a door opening into a dark 
little closet containing pegs for the girls to hang their 
things on, and a bench where they set their dinner baskets. 

A single continuous line of desks ran around three 
sides of the room, leaving an open space next the wall 
along which the big scholars walked when they went to 
their places. The seat accompanying this long desk 
was also continuous, and the scholars were obliged to step 
over it before being seated. Both seat and desk were raised 
on a little platform a few inches above the level of the floor. 
On the front of the desk was another seat, low down, for 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter 7 

the smaller children. These could use the desk for a 
back, but had no desk themselves, while the older ones 
had the desk, but no back. In the open space, in front, 
was the teacher's table, and on it two or three books, 
an ink bottle and quills, a lot of copy books, and a ruler. 
Jonas was using the teacher's chair, but he replaced it 
behind the teacher's table when the other scholars began 
to arrive. 

In the midst of the game of tag some one cried, "The 
schoolmaster's coming," and the uproar ceased. 

The master was a c^uiet, rather stern-looking young 
man, the son of a farmer of a neighboring town. For 
several winters he had been teaching, but not with the 
idea of making that his calling. He had gone through the 
common schools with credit, and studied at an academy 
for a year or two. Summers he worked on the farm, and 
he intended to be a farmer ; but in winter work was slack 
at home, and, as he could be spared, he took the oppor- 
tunity to gain ready money by teaching. There were 
many young men in the country towns doing likewise. 

His pay was small, but he was at no expense for his 
living, as he "boarded round" — that is, he stayed with 
each family of the neighborhood for a length of time pro- 
portioned to the number of pupils it sent to the school. 
At the beginning of the term the teacher divided the num- 
ber of days by the number of pupils, and thus determined 



The Country School 




Gitliug liw teaclnrs help in a hard problem 
how long he should stay with each family. It sometimes 
happened that after staying all around the allotted time 
there were still a few days left to teach, and then, in order 
to have things come out even, the master would change 
his boarding place every night. When neighbor met 
neighbor it was always an interesting topic of inquiry 
where the teacher was stopping and where he was going 
next; and his having to '^varm so many beds" was a 
standing joke. 

The teacher of this winter's school was at present stay- 
ing with the Holmans, and the four children of the family 
came down the hill with him, but ran on ahead when they 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter o 

approached the schoolhouse. All had dinner baskets, 
the master included. Just before he reached the school- 
house the children went inside, and when he entered the 
door he found them all standing in their places. He 
removed his hat, bowed, and said "Good morning." 

In response the whole school "made their manners," 

or, in other words, the boys bowed and the girls courte- 

sied. At the same time they said "Good morning, sir." 

Then the older ones stepped over their seats, all sat 

do\^-n, and school began at once. 

The daily sessions in the old-time schools were supposed 
to start at nine o'clock, but fe^v teachers had watches, and 
they could not well be exact. Some would bring hour- 
glasses, but the only timekeeper a school was sure to have 
was a noon mark on a southern window sill. Even this 
was useless on clouded days, and a good deal of guessing 
had to be done. 

The first exercise in the morning was reading in the 
Testament. Each pupil who was able read two verses. 
In those times prayers were not said in school, and 
the reading completed the morning worship. The older 
scholars now turned their attention to studving, and 
the smallest children were called up to say their letters. 
The winter term began the week after Thanksgiving, 
and continued twelve, fourteen, and even sixteen weeks. 
The cold weather, bad traveUing, and distance prevented 



10 The Country School 

most of the younger children from coming; but the 
big boys and girls, who had been kept out at work dur- 
ing the summer, came instead, and the school would 
number twenty-five or thirty pupils. The more mature 
scholars, though almost men and women in size, were 
none older than fourteen or fifteen. As a rule they 
left school for good at that age, but a few would attend 
an academy in a neighboring town, and now and then 
a boy would fit himself for college by studying with 
the minister. College education for girls was unthought 
of, and no institution existed where such education could 
be had for the daughters. 

The youngest scholars had no books. When they 
recited they came up before the teacher, who pointed 
out the letters in the Speller with his quill. This book 
was the famous Webster's Spelling Book, a blue-covered, 
homely little volume, containing, besides the alphabet 
and many long columns of words, the figures, Roman 
and Arabic, days of the week, months of the year, ab- 
breviations, names of the States, and various other things. 
The speller also served as a reader. The first and simplest 
reading started with, "No man may put off the law of 
God." Farther on were some little stories and fables, 
accompanied by a few rude pictures. Lastly came 
the Moral Catechism, starting with the question, "Is 
pride commendable?" 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter ii 

In spelling, the children began with word fragments 
of two letters. Elderly people sometimes speak of "learn- 
ing their a-b abs," meaning by that the learning to spell 
syllables of two letters. They would spell thus: "A-b 
ab, e-b eb, i-b ib, o-b ob, u-b ub ; b-a ba, b-e be, b-i bi, 
b-o bo, b-u bu, b-y by;" and so on right through the 
alphabet. By the time they possessed a Speller they 
would perhaps be able to spell cat and dog and other 
three-letter words. Besides spelling, they learned some- 
thing of the sounds of the letters and to count a little. 
When the class finished reciting they were sent to their 
seats. The smallest children had neither slates nor 
books to amuse themselves with, and after reciting could 
only sit still and watch and listen to the others. Very 
tiresome they found this sometimes. If they became 
restless, so much the worse for them, for the teacher 
would then reprimand them, and tell them to fold their 
hands and be quiet, and perhaps threaten them with 
punishment. 

The next older class were taking their first reading 
lessons from the Speller. Even the most advanced of 
the pupils used that book to spell from. 

Another of the school books of the time was " The New 
England Primer." It was a small, thin, blue-covered 
volume, that contained many little stories, proverbs, 
rhymes, and questions, and cjuaint woodcuts, and was 



12 The Country School 

quite religious in tone. In one place the alphabet was 
given with a picture and rhyme for each letter. Both 
pictures and rhymes were so rude that, in spite of the 
seriousness of the themes, they now seem to us decidedly 
humorous. Here are specimens of the jingles : — 

" Noah did view 
The Old World and New." 

" Zaccheus, he, 
Did climb the tree 
His Lord to see." 

" Young Obadias, 
David, Josias, 
All were pious." 

About the middle of the forenoon the scholars put 
aside other tasks, and wrote. At close of school, on 
the night before, the teacher had set their copies — that 
is, he had written a sentence across the top line of a page 
in each scholar's "copy book." The children made 
these copy books at home from large sheets of blank, 
unlined paper, which they folded and sewed into a cover 
of brown paper, or one made from an old newspaper. 
In school, each pupil had a ruler and plummet, and 
with these made the lines to write on. They had no 
lead pencils, but the plummet answered instead. Plum- 
mets were made at home by melting waste lead and 
running it in shallow grooves two or three inches long 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter 13 

cut in a stick of wood. Sometimes the cracks in the 
kitchen floor were found to be convenient places to run 
the lead in. When the metal cooled a little, it was whittled 
and smoothed down and pointed, and perhaps, as a final 
touch, a hole was bored through the big end, that the 
owner might hang his plummet on a string about his 
neck. 

Children just beginning to write made "hooks and 
trammels," the ''hooks" being curved hnes, and the 
"trammels" straight ones. After practising on these 
a while they were advanced to letters, and later to words 
and sentences. Each pupil had a bottle of ink and a 
quill pen. Whenever the pen became worn or broken, 
the teacher was asked to "mend" it; or, if entirely used 
up, the scholar would bring a fresh quill to the teacher, 
and say, "Please, sir, will you make my pen for me?" 
and the teacher, with his jackknife, would comply. 
The mending was simply whittling it down and making 
a new point. There was quite a knack in doing this 
quickly and well. 

Toward eleven o'clock the girls had their recess, but 
it was short, and gave them little time to play. At the 
end of five minutes the teacher came to the door and 
rapped sharply on the side of the building with his ruler, 
which was the signal for them to come in. Then the 
boys had their recess. 



H 



The Country School 



Of history, grammar, and geography the pupils learned 
very little. The Speller barely touched on these subjects, 
but the children had no separate text-books for the studies 
named. Yet a few such text-books had been printed 
and were being used to an increasing degree in the schools 
of the period. 




Telling grandma about the day at school 



The children were taught to count on their fingers, 
and, in summer, when they came barefoot, toes, too, 
were made to do duty. Some progress, besides, was 
made in adding and subtracting. In learning to multiply 
they used little rhymes to help their memory, on the 
same plan as the counting ditty in Mother Goose, "One 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter 15 

two, buckle my shoe," etc. Finally, when they were 
in the highest class in school, they had a text -book called 
Root's Arithmetic. Like all the smaller schoolbooks, 
it had a grayish blue cover of paper pasted over thin 
wood. If the book were roughly handled, or bent much, 
the wood cracked and splintered, and, with ten restless 
fingers handling it, the cover, fragment by fragment, 
soon disappeared. The arithmetic scholars had slates 
on which they did their sums. When the teacher pro- 
nounced the sums correct, these were neatly copied 
from the slate into blank books, made in the same man- 
ner as were the children's writing books and known as 
"ciphering books." 

The forenoon wore away, and the sun shone in full 
at the southern windows. Just as the shadow of the 
middle frame crept into a little furrow cut in the wooden 
sill with a jackknife, school was dismissed. Before the 
shadow was out on the other side of the noon mark 
the girls had secured their dinner baskets and wraps 
from the little closet back of the chimney, and the boys 
had grabbed up theirs in the entry, and the whole school 
was in the yard. To-day they all climbed over to the 
sunny side of the stone wall back of the schoolhouse, 
and soon were busy eating. 

Beneath the cloth in the square little baskets were bread 
and butter and doughnuts and gingerbread, and perhaps 



l6 The Country School 

an apple or two. When they had finished eating thev 
began to chatter more freely, and most of the scholars 
clambered back over the wall and ran down to the brook 
for a drink. Lyddy Mason had brought a bottle of 
sweetened water, and didn't need to go to the brook. 
The sweetening was supplied by maple sugar, and the 
rest of the children looked on with envious eyes while 
Lyddy emptied her bottle. 

In the wood back of the schoolhouse were frequent 
beech trees, now bare-limbed, but very handsome in 
their smooth, gray, mottled bark. Among the leaves 
on the ground were many of the brown nuts scattered 
there by autumn winds and frosts. The squirrels were 
busy harvesting them, and with noisy chatter raced 
about over the ground and up the tree trunks. The 
children came too, and with bits of brush poked about 
under the beeches, and ate, and filled their pockets. 
Then, perhaps, they would start a game of " hide 
and seek," and when the child at the goal shouted 
"Coming!" there would be one of his companions behind 
every neighboring tree trunk and boulder. 

Other games they often played were blindman's-buff, 
tag, hull-gull, odd or even, and ball. The ball was a 
home-made affair of old stocking ravellings wound to- 
gether and covered with sheepskin. The club was 
a round stick selected from the woodpile. 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter 17 

At about one o'clock the rapping of the teacher's ruler 
on the clapboards of the schoolhousc brought the chil- 
dren in, and work was resumed. Spelling, reading, and 
writing were gone through with again. The only change 
was in the case of the older scholars, who read from 
the Testament in the morning, but in the afternoon 
used instead a book of prose and verse selections called 
''The Art of Reading." 

As the day wore on, the weather grew colder; the 
wind came up and rattled the loose clapboards, and 
whistled about the eaves and chimney-mouth, and made 
the branches of the trees back of the schoolhouse sway 
and shiver. Winter seemed to have pounced down on the 
region all at once, and the Indian summer, which had 
held on this year longer than usual, was brought to a 
sudden end. A good deal of air came in at the cracks 
of the little building, and the master found it necessary 
to pile the wood on the fire more and more frequently. 
Now and then one of the big boys would be sent out in 
the yard for a fresh armful of the three-foot sticks. He 
would set them up against the wall next the fireplace, 
in which the flames were dancing and making mad leaps 
up the chimney, as if anxious to join the tumult of the 
wind outside. 

Just after recess one of the boys said all the cut wood 
in the yard was gone. Jonas Brill, whose duty it had 



1 8 The Country School 

been to furnish a supply for the day, had not calculated 
on such cold weather, and the master had to call on 
two of the big boys to go out and cut more. To be sure, 
there was a small store of wood ready cut in the entry, 
but that was reserved for an emergency. A little before 
school closed the master asked, "Who is going to make 
the fire in the morning? " 

Willie Smith said it was his turn, but he had an errand 
to do, and he didn't believe he could get there in time, 
Jonas Brill then said he would make it again. The 
question, who should chop the wood and build the fire 
for the next day, was one which had to be decided each 
afternoon. 

When the school was ready to close, the teacher ap- 
pointed one of the girls to get her mates' things from 
the closet and pass them around. As soon as the girls 
had pinned the httle blankets over their heads and put 
on their mittens, the whole school rose, and one by one, 
beginning with the smallest children, they were dis- 
missed. Each paused at the door, and turning toward 
the teacher "made his or her manners." 

Once outdoors, the scholars separated, some to go 
up the road, some do^\^l, while three or four cut across 
lots home. Betsey had company about half way. Then 
the road divided, and she went on alone. The sky 
had grayed over, and the sun, dully glaring in the haze, 




Gettine his arillimetic lesson 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter 19 

was just sinking behind a western hilltop. The wind 
was blowing sharply, and the leaves were rustling along 
the frozen earth trying to find some quiet nook or hollow 
to hide in. The httle girl bent her head and pushed 
on against the wind, even humming a little to herself, 
and seemed not at all to mind the roughness of the 
weather. 

Nevertheless, she was glad to get home, and to stand 
and rub her hands before the fire snapping and blaz- 
ing in the big fireplace. 

Just before going to bed, Mr. Hale put his head out of 
the door to see what the weather prospects were. The 
wind had gone down a little, but it was snowing. " Waal," 
he said, "I thought 'twould snow before morning, but I 
didn't s'pose 'twould begin so quick. I declare, it's 
coming down considerable thick, too." 

He withdrew his head, brushed a few white flakes 
from his hair, and stood some minutes by the fire warm 
ing himself. Then he shovelled the ashes over the coals 
and went to bed. 

The storm proved an unusually heavy one. At day- 
light on the morrow the air was still full of the falling 
flakes, but the storm slackened presently, and by break- 
fast time it had stopped snowing. The brown fields 
had been deep buried in their winter mantle, and there 
were big drifts in the road. 



20 



The Country School 



Betsey went to school that day on an ox sled. She 
started directly after breakfast, as the sled was to collect 
all the other scholars who lived along the way, and there 
were drifts which must be shovelled out. Her father 
and three big brothers went too, and shouted at the 
oxen as they plodded along the roadway; but now and 
then there was a pause when they found the road blocked 
by a drift which required shovelling. They picked up 
other children, and prcsentlv had a sled full, some cling- 




Starting jor school 

ing to the stakes at the sides, others sitting on the bottom, 
all shouting, or stamping, or pelting the oxen, and having 
a great frolic. 

Some time before the ox sled party reached its destina- 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter 21 

tion Jonas Brill had ploughed his way through the snow 
to the schoolhouse. He wished Willie Smith had made 
his own fire that morning. However, there was no 
helping the matter. He stamped the snow from his 
boots on the door-sill and carried in the kindlings from 
the entry; but, to his dismay, he found no coals among 
the ashes — naught but a few sparks, which at once 
flashed out. Jonas felt that his life was a hard one. 
It was before the time of matches, and he must go to 
a neighbor's and borrow some fire. He pulled off a 
broad strip of green hemlock bark from a log in the 
yard, and kicked along through the snow to the nearest 
house, where he w^as made welcome to all the coals he 
wanted. He wrapped several in the green bark, and 
returned. 

When he had deposited the coals in the fireplace and 
piled the kindlings on top, he got down on his hands 
and knees, and, by blowing lustily, fanned the coals 
into a blaze ; and when the fire was well started he went 
out and cleared a little space next the woodpile. There 
he was chopping when Betsey and the children with 
her arrived on the ox sled. Another sled-load soon 
came from the opposite direction, and the scholars 
were all there. 

They tramped around in the snow till the ox teams 
left, and then went indoors and crowded about the fire. 



22 



The Country School 




i 




Snowballing 

Shortly afterward the master came, and school began. 
This day was much like the day before, except that 
they had a shorter nooning, because the deep snow had 
put a stop to most of their open-air sports, and school 
closed earlier. The short noonings and early closing 
were usual throughout the term. 

Winter had now fairly begun. In spite of the cold 
and the bad travelling, the pupils were quite regular in 
attendance. They, for the most part, walked back 
and forth, rarely getting a ride, unless when, after a storm, 
the roads had to be broken out. The brook, these winter 
days, was frozen and snow-covered, and the children, 
when thirsty, would hold a snowball in their hands till 



Old-fashioned School Days — Winter 22 

it became water-soaked, and then suck it. They did 
not care to play out of doors much, though at times 
some of the older boys and girls would sally forth and 
snowball, or start a game of "fox and geese." The 
girls were kept in more than the boys, because of their 
skirts, which easily became wet and frozen in the snow, 
and also on account of their shoes, which only came 
ankle high, and had a tendency to fill with snow at the 
sides. They had no leggings, but when the roads were 
worst would perhaps pull on a pair of old stockings 
over their shoes. 

School kept every day in the week except Sunday, 
and there was no pause at Christmas, or New Year, 
or Washington's Birthday, for none of these days was 
made much of at that time. If the teacher was sick, 
or for some other reason lost a day, he would make it 
up at the end of the term. Thus it happened that the 
"last day" varied from Monday to Saturday. 



This boy /\^A ^ — ^*^ "^ t^^ " This man has 
stole an j\ V?f "^ ^^^'^^ ^"^ " 

apple." \ 1 I I going to lick him:' 



A drawing by one of the school children 




II 

OLD-FASHIONED SCHOOL DAYS 
SUMMER 

THE summer term began the first Monday in May. 
In various ways it was different from the winter 
term. The teacher was not a man this time, 
but a voung woman. There were fewer scholars, as 
the big boys were kept out to work on the farm ; but 
Betsey Hale came trudging over from the farm each 
day with her dinner basket on her arm. Something 
besides food was in the basket now — that is, sewing ; 
for this was one thing taught in summer. 

Instead of the little white blanket w^hich Betsey had 
worn in winter for a head covering, she now had a sun- 
bonnet made of copperas-colored cotton cloth over paste- 
board. This pasteboard had been made at home by 
pasting a lot of old newspapers together, and it was 
apt to be rather limpsey. Her dress was of cotton, 
woven by her mother, in blue and white stripes, and 
very simple in its make-up. There were no buttons 
on it, and its only fastening was a cord at the neck. She 
wore shoes and stockings to-day, but later in the season, 

24 



Old-fashioned School Days — Summer 25 

when the weather was a little warmer, she would go 
barefoot. 

The schoolroom had been trimmed with evergreens, 
and the wide mouth of the fireplace had been filled with 
boughs of pine and laurel. 



Learning her lesson at home 

The teacher had a pair of scissors dangling from her 
belt and used them to point out the letters in the Speller 
when the A-B-C class gathered about her. A good many 
small children came in summer who could not get to 
school during the cold weather — occasionally one not 



26 The Country School 

over three years old. Such a Httle fellow would very 
likely get to nodding, and the teacher would pick him 
up and carry him to the closet, where, on the bench 
with the girls' dinner baskets, he would have his nap 
out. By and by he would emerge and toddle to his 
place, quite bright after his sleep. 

Most of the little ones were dismissed early, and those 
who could handle a needle brought patchwork, so that, 
by reason of this employment and the shorter hours, 
they had a much more comfortable time of it than in 
winter. 

Older scholars, besides patchwork, brought towels 
and tablecloths to hem. Some of them worked samplers. 
Betsey made quite a large sampler this term — fourteen 
by twenty inches. It was on green canvas, and the 
stitches were taken with yellow and red silk. First 
a checked border was made, then the alphabet in small 
letters was worked in across the top, next the figures 
and capitals, and under those a Scripture verse, "Remem- 
ber thy Creator in the days of thy youth." Below that 
came her name and age, and, at the bottom, flowers 
in a flower-pot, a small tree, a lamb, a dog, and a lion. 

These samplers, when elaborate, were often framed, 
and that was what was done with Betsey's, after the 
summer term came to an end. Then it was hung at 
home in the "best room" — -that is, the parlor. As 



Old-fashioned School Days — Summer 27 

there was in those days no indeHble ink, all the clothing 
had to be marked by stitching, and the sampler showed 
how to make the letters. 

This term school closed every other Saturday. In 
most towns, when they began to shorten the number 
of school days in a week, they first took off Saturday 
afternoon; but here the scholars had to come so far 
that it was thought best to give them a whole day every 
other week. On Friday or Saturday afternoon, which- 
ever happened to be the last afternoon of the school 
week, the children studied the Catechism. It was a 
thin little book, divided into two parts. Part First 
was headed "Historical"; Part Second was the "As- 




The road to learning 



28 The Country School 

sembly Catechism." The historical part had nearly 
two hundred questions and answers, and at the top of 
each page were two small square pictures portraying 
some Bible scene, and b^low each was a reference to the 
story it illustrated. 

Part Second had in it one hundred and seven questions, 
largely doctrinal, beginning with "What is the chief 
end of man?" 

Once a year, extending over three Sundays, the chil- 
dren said the Assembly Catechism in the meeting-house. 
Just after the sermon, the boys on one side, the girls 
on the other, they formed in long parallel lines in the 
middle aisle, facing each other, all very prim and solemn 
and scared. The minister came down from the pulpit 
overhung by the big sounding-board, and took his place 
in the deacons' seat, which ran along the front of the 
pulpit. The minister put the questions and the children 
answered in turn. First a boy, then a girl, would step 
forth from the lines, face the questioner, and give the 
answer, and this solemn routine continued till a re- 
sponse had been elicited from the last little girl, whose 
frightened murmur could scarce be heard a yard away. 

On the first Sunday the children answered as far as 
the commandments — forty-four questions ; the second 
Sunday, they went on through the commandments to 
the eighty-first question ; and the third time finished 







.r.''^zim:-Jt.^mm 



Old-fashioned School Days — Summer 29 

the book. Only those stood who could answer, and 
while the first day saw quite a crowd of children before 
the pulpit, on the final day the answers had become 
so difficuh that only a few of the older boys and girls 
remained. 

There were five days in the year which were recognized 
as holidays: Fast Day, Independence Day, Training 
Day, Election Day, and Thanksgiving Day. The second 
was the only one which came within the bounds of either 
school term. It was celebrated rather quietly, and for 
the children was not especially different from any other 
week day when school did not keep, except that less 
work .was given them to do. They had no torpedoes, 
firecrackers, or toy pistols, and they made little noise. 
Through all the hot weather, until the summer was 
nearly at an end, the school continued in session. On 
warm days the question, "Please, ma'am, may I go down 
and get a drink?" was a frequent one, and nearly all 
day one or another of the children could be seen on their 
way to and from the pasture hollow where the brook 
ran. They had no cup to drink from, unless they shaped 
a big leaf for the purpose. Usually they would kneel 
down on the stones and dip their lips into the stream, 
and with none of the fear, which might disturb the 
moderns, of swallowing water snakes, frogs, pollywogs, 
or like creatures that were possibly swimming there. 



30 



The Coimtrv School 




A reciiatioK in anthiiietic 

The teacher often allowed some of the scholars to go 
out and study under the trees "when they were good." 
Alany a time did Betsey sit under the beeches in the grove 
behind the schoolhouse with book in hand ; but the 
grove was not so good a study place as indoors, there 
were so many things about to see. The temptation 
was to fall to dreaming, to listen to the wind whispering 
through the boughs and to the faint murmur of the brook 
from the pasture hollow, to watch a wandering butterfly, 
the squirrels and the birds, or the leaves fluttering above 
her head, or to turn around to the gray tree trunk at her 
back and gaze in fascination at the ants journeying 
up and down the bark. Yet though these things inter- 



Old-fashioned School Days — Summer 31 

fered with her studying, the experience was so pleasant 

that she went out as often as the teacher would let her. 

The teachers were all quite strict and allowed small 

liberty, and their punishments for little misdemeanors 




were often severe. However, Betsey herself was naturally 
obedient and gentle, and she fared very well. Once, for 
making too much noise, she had to stand on the floor 
with her hands tied behind her; and again, for whisper- 
ing, had to sit beside a great, coarse boy. These were 
the only serious punishments she ever received. 



32 The Country School 

One winter term two of the big girls persisted in look- 
ing out of the window, and Betsey was quite frightened 
when the master shook a warning finger at them and 
said he would put them out through the window if they 
looked again. This teacher chewed tobacco, and had 
an odd way of holding his quid between his lower lip 
and teeth, making a c{ueer lump on his chin. The two 
big girls took revenge on him by rolling up wads of paper 
and imitating the master with his quid, and he could 
not very well punish them without making himself ridicu- 
lous. The commonest form of punishment was feruling. 

The woman teacher was addressed as "Ma'am." 
When a scholar wished to speak to her, he would not 
raise his hand to attract her attention, but would either 
go to her, or speak right out. At close of school, as 
the children were leaving the room, the boys turned 
to the teacher, hats in hand, and bowed, and the girls 
courtesied, and each said "Good afternoon, ma'am." 

The children liked also to make their manners when 
they met some one on the road. Very likely several 
of the little girls would join hands and stand by the way- 
side and courtesy to a person passing, and then, if that 
person smiled down on them and said, "Nice children," 
they were much pleased. 

In summer, as in winter, the teacher boarded around. 
The summer teacher was pretty sure to be young, usually 



Old-fashioned School Days — Summer 33 

taught a few years, then married, and taught no more. 
Her pay was from a dollar to a dollar and seventy-five 
cents a week. 

As the term drew to a close the scholars began to learn 
"pieces" to speak on the last day. A good many learned 
hymns. Betsey studied this term a little poem of Mrs. 
Barbauld's called "The Rose." They did not write 
compositions. 




Planting ^ower -seeds 

Last day came this time on Thursday, in the middle 
of August. The sun rose clear and warm, the air was 
heavy and still, and the weather promised to be very 



34 The Country School 

hot. All the children came dressed in their best, which 
made the day seem like Sunday, and added to the feel- 
ing of strangeness and excitement which overhung the 
great occasion. 

Betsey started at about the usual time. She was 
barefoot, but carried, besides her dinner basket, her best 
shoes and stockings in her hand, for she must keep them 
from the dew which dampened the grass and from the 
dust of the roadway. As she walked along she repeated 
over and over aloud the poem she was to recite in the 
afternoon. When she got to the schoolhouse, she wiped 
her feet on the wet grass and put on her shoes and stock- 
ings. 

The morning session was short, and mostly occupied 
by reviewing for the exercises of the afternoon. Those 
children who lived close enough then ran home, and 
the rest went to the nearest neighbor's and borrowed 
chairs, with which they filled the open space back of 
the teacher's table. On the day previous they had 
given the room a great sweeping and scrubbing, and 
had torn down the dry evergreens from the fireplace 
and about the windows and replaced them with fresh. 
Now they put finishing touches to the trim, did various 
little things, and finally were ready to eat dinner. Mean- 
time great clouds had gathered in the west and had 
rolled up across the sky, and presently the first big. 



Old-fashioned School Days — Summer 35 

threatening drops of a shower came pelting down. The 
children were obliged to eat their dinners indoors, and 
as the storm increased, it was a mournful little com- 
pany that gathered at the windows, munching their 
bread and butter and watching the lightning flash and 
the sheets of rain drive past. 

But just as they had concluded that "Last day" was 
spoiled, the storm suddenly ceased, and the water-drops 
clinging to the leaves and grasses danced in the breeze 
that blew, and sparkled in the sunlight, while the big 
thundcrheads sank behind the eastern hilltops. Then the 
scholars thought nothing could have happened better. 

Those that had gone home returned, and presently 
school commenced. The visitors began to arrive soon, 
and they kept coming till the room was pretty well 
crowded. The fathers and mothers were there, and 
some of the older brothers and sisters; but the two per- 
sons of most importance were the "school committee- 
man" and the minister. There was one school com- 
mittee-man in each district, whose duty it was to hire 
the teacher, to see that the schoolhouse was kept in re- 
pair, and attend to like matters. The pupils were quite 
awestruck by the presence of so many of their elders, 
and felt that they must behave their best, and their hearts 
beat fast at the thought of saying their lessons before 
so many. 



36 The Country School 

First, the little ones were called out on the floor to 
recite. They said the letters, spelled a few short words, 
counted a little, answered a number of the lirst questions 
in the Primer, and some of the first questions in the 
Catechism. Then the teacher asked a list of questions 
about Bible characters, "Who was the strongest man? 
Who was the meekest man ? Who was the wisest man ? 
Who was the most patient man?" etc. Lastly, they 
were asked what town they lived in, the name of the 
minister, what State they lived in, the name of the Gover- 
nor, what country they li\ed in, and the name of the 
President. 

The next class, besides reading and spelling and a 
few simple exercises in arithmetic, gave the abbrevi- 
ations and the Roman numerals. 

The oldest scholars, after reading and spelling, re- 
peated what they had learned of the multiplication table, 
and gave the sounds of the letters, each reciting in turn. 
Here is the way the letter-sounding exercise began : "Long 
a, name, late ; long e, here, feet ; long i, time, find ; 
long o, note, fort ; long u or ew, tunc, new ; long y, dry, 
defy. Short a, man, hat. Broad a, bald, tall. Flat a, 
ask, part. Diphthongs, o-i, o-y, voice, joy; o-u, o-w, 
loud, now. B has only one sound, as in bite. C is al- 
ways sounded like k or s, thus : c-a, ca ; c-e, ce ; c-i, ci ; 
c-o, co; c-u, cu; c-y, cy." 



Old-fashioned School Days — Summer 37 



So they would rattle it off to the end of the alphabet. 
Another thing the older scholars learned in school and 
recited last day was the names of the books in the Bible. 

After this class 



finished, the chil- 
dren were called 
on to speak their 
pieces. One after 
another the lar- 
ger pupils came 
out before the 
company and said 
the hymns and 
poems they had 
learned. In start- 
ing to speak and in 
closing, the boys 
bowed and the 
girls courtesied. 

The teacher had 
made a rose of thin 
paper for Betsey 
to hold while she ^'/'^' ''"^ "^ ''^^^'' 

spoke her piece, but, though she had it in her hand, she 
was so excited she forgot to hold it up for the audience 
to see. However, she spoke the piece very prettily. 




38 The Country School 

Meantime the writing books and the ciphering books 
and samplers had been passing from hand to hand among 
the visitors, who examined them with considerable care. 
Now the teacher turned to the visitors, and said, if there 
were any remarks to be made, the school would be glad 
to hear them. Three or four of the men got up one 
after the other, and each said he had been much pleased 
with the exercises. "You are nice children," one 
man declared; "you done well." 

Another said, "You have answered some questions 
which I presume a good many of us older people present 
couldn't have answered." 

Lastly the minister rose. Save for his mild voice 
all was very quiet in the little room. The children with 
folded hands sat listening, and the older people were 
attentive too. Through the open windows came the 
wind in a gentle current. Outside, a multitude of in- 
sects mingled their voices in a continuous murmur, 
but among them, at intervals, sounded the strident, 
long-drawn note of a Cicada. The breeze made a light 
fluttering in the trees behind the building, and there, 
too, a wood bird was singing. By the roadside the 
visitors' teams were hitched, and, as the minutes drow- 
sily sped, the children half consciously heard the horses 
stamping, and nibbling at the bushes. 

The substance of the minister's remarks was that 




All excuse for being late 



Old-fashioned School Days — Summer 39 

the scholars should be good children, should mind their 
parents, and not neglect their books in vacation, for, 
while "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; 
all play and no work makes Jack a mere toy." At the 
close of the talk the company bowed their heads, and 
the minister offered prayer. This ended the exercises 
of the day, and the visitors passed out. 

The scholars still remained seated. It was the custom 
of the woman teacher, at the close of her term, to give 
the children some little presents, and now was the time 
for distribution. The eyes of the pupils had wandered 
many times with curious interest to the small package 
which had lain on her table all the afternoon. The 
gifts it contained were simple and inexpensive, but they 
gave a great deal of pleasure. Some of the children 
received a half yard of bright-colored ribbon, one would 
get a man of sugar, another a more substantial man 
of tin. Again, it would be a picture, or a stick of cin- 
namon, or a tiny illustrated story book costing a cent 
or two. 

Then the scholars began picking up their books and 
other belongings. Betsey got her copy book and cipher- 
ing book and sampler from among those which had 
been passed about to show the visitors, her basket and 
bonnet from the closet, her Primer, Speller, Testament, 
and reading book, and her quills, plummet, ruler, and 



40 



The Country School 



ink from her desk, and, thus loaded, passed through the 
schoolhouse door. Her folks had come with a team and 
were talking with some of the neighbors. She climbed 
into the wagon, and soon they jogged off toward home. 




A holiday — playing at gypsies 

Children and visitors had all gone. Only the teacher 
remained. She had closed the windows, and now sat 
with her elbow on the table and her head on her hand. 
Through the door came the murmurous voices of the 
insects, the faint ripple of the brook over its stones in 
the pasture, and the dull tinkle of a cowbell far off. 



Old-fashioned School Days — Summer 41 

Presently a team came rattling along the highway 
and stopped before the schoolhouse. The teacher rose 
quickly, gathered up her few things, and went out. She 
lived six miles distant, and was now going home. Her 
father had driven over to visit the school, and since the 
close of the exercises he had been to her last boarding 
place to get the little hair trunk which was in the back 
part of the wagon. The teacher climbed in, the man 
clucked to the horse, and with the sun low in the west- 
ern haze shining full in their faces, they followed the road 
along the level, and by its winding, bush-lined course 
were soon hidden from view. 




The teacher going home 



Ill 

THE SCHOOLS BETWEEN 1830 and i860 

IN times of peace the changes wrought in the habits, 
manners, and institutions of a people are very 
gradual. Shreds and remnants of every custom 
which has had general acceptance linger long after that 
custom has in most quarters disappeared. Thus, in 
the New England school of the period just preceding 
the Civil War, the educational methods and the school- 
room environment continued in many communities to be 
much the same as half a century before. What is here 
recounted is fairly characteristic of the majority of schools 
and neighborhoods, but it will not bear a too literal appli- 
cation to particular towns and villages. 

The school year still consisted of two terms, one in 
summer and the other in winter. As a rule, a man 
taught in winter and a woman in summer, and the teach- 
ers "boarded round." The custom of boarding round 
was, however, less universal than formerly, and was 
gradually falling into disuse. Schoolbooks were becom- 
ing more varied and numerous, and were less stilted 
in style than in times past. Nor were they so solemnly 

42 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 43 

religious as they had been. Instead, they were inclined 
to be gently moralizing, and never told a story without 
preaching a little sermon at the end, even if they did 
not pause now and then midway to give a dose of 
proper advice. 

I wish to describe with some detail an average school 
of the period located in an outlying village of one of the 
old Massachusetts towns of the Connecticut Valley. The 
score of houses which made up the hamlet were scattered 
along a two-mile strip of meadow land which lay between 
a low mountain ridge on the east and the river on the 
west. Midway on the single north and south road stood 
the weather-worn little school building. A narrow, open 
yard, worn bare of grass for a space about the doorstep, 
separated the schoolhouse from the dusty road. At one 
end of the building a big apple tree partly shadowed it. 
At the other end was a lean-to shed where the wood for 
the fire was stored. 

Inside of the schoolhouse, a narrow entry ran across 
the north side, but this was completely filled in the middle 
by a great chimney. The boys kept their caps on the 
lines of pegs in the front entry; and in a closet back of 
the chimney, entered from the schoolroom, the girls 
hung their sunbonnets or hoods, and other wraps. 

The small square main room had bare, plastered 
walls and ceiling. Not only was the plaster grimy with 



44 



The Country School 



smoke and age, but it was much cracked, and here and 
there were holes that the boys had pounded or dug 
through. Each side of the room, except the north, 
had two windows which looked out on the farm fields, 
orchards, and mountain. The chief feature of the 




On the way to school 

windowless side of the room was a wide fireplace with 
its brick hearth. To the right of the fireplace stood 
a broom, and whenever the crackling fire snapped out 
a coal on the floor, the first boy who saw it was expected 
to jump up and brush it back. It was not always that 
a boy would take the trouble to brush the coals back 
by using the broom. A quicker method was to kick 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 45 

them to the hearth with his boot or to crush the fire out 
by stepping on it. The boards about the hearth were 
therefore blackened with many little hollows where 
the coals had fallen, and were also well strewn usually 
with the powdered charcoal resulting from the coals 
being stepped on. These miniature explosions from 
the fireplace were quite entertaining to the children 
and made a grateful break in the monotony of the school 
work. 

Another feature of the north side of the room was 
a small blackboard between the fireplace and the en- 
trance. On this the big boys did their sums. The 
girls did not use it. A very moderate amount of mathe- 
matics was supposed to sufliice for females, and they 
stopped short of problems that needed to be done on 
a blackboard. 

Around the other three sides of the room, against 
the wall, ran a continuous desk, accompanied by a 
backless bench well polished with use. To get to their 
places, or to leave them, the boys would sit do\Mi, lift 
their heels, and with a quick whirl swing them to the 
other side. The girls on their side of the room had 
two hinged openings in this seat, which could be lifted 
to allow them to pass in and out, but most of them 
preferred to whirl as the boys did. A part of the time 
the scholars eased themselves of the discomfort of their 



46 



The Country School 



backless seats by turning about and using the edge of 
the desk as a support. Within the hollow scjuare 

bounded by this outer 
desk and seat, on 
each of the three 
sides, was a mova- 
ble Ijcnch with a back 
shoulder high. The 
end seats on these 
benches were thought 
to be particularly de- 
sirable, because they 
were so built as to 
have a support there 
for the elbow. The 
benches were for the 
smaller children who 
sat on them facing the 
center of the room, 
where was the teach- 
er's desk and a single 
stiff - backed wooden 
An old-time schoolgirl costume chair 

The teacher's desk was a simple four-legged affair 
with drawers in it that could be locked. The locking 
was an attribute of some consequence, for besides being 




The Schools between 1830 and i860 47 




pjijoynii^ a Sntiininy iidlulay 



a repository for various articles that were the private 
property of the teacher, the drawers were a place of 
detention for certain belongings of the pupils which 
had been confiscated. Among the latter, pieces of rubber 
at one time figured very prominently. This occurred 
while the school was passing through a period of rubber- 
chewing. Rubber overshoes were in those days made 
of thick, black, natural rubber. After they were worn 
out,, squares that made very good erasers could be cut 
from the heavier parts. The children discovered that 
chewing turned the rubber white, and they decided 
they preferred erasers of that color. In beginning on 



48 The Country School 

a fresh piece the chewing was far from easy, but the 
rubber gradually softened as the process continued. 
Often the older scholars would get the smaller ones 
to do the preliminary masticating, and of course the 
little ones felt it an honor to do this for the big pupils 
and undertook the tiresome task willingly. As the 
rubber whitened it became much more elastic, and if 
you chose, you could stretch it over your fingers, fill 
it with air and make it explode with a pleasing pop. 
The master took away quantities of it and put the spoil 
in the secret recesses of his desk, or threw it into the 
fire; but the little folks persisted in the manufacture 
for a long time. 

The chief school dignitary of the village was the "pru- 
dential committee-man." He hired the teacher; he 
bought the water pail, the dipper, and the broom ; and 
he saw that the wood house was properly filled and the 
premises kept in repair. His position was not what 
the poet calls "a downy bed of ease," for he was the 
subject of much comment and criticism. It was thought 
he had too strong a tendency to hire one of his own daugh- 
ters when he possessed an unmarried one sutificiently 
advanced in age and learning; and, no matter who 
it was he selected, the teacher he hired frequently failed 
to suit the community. If, in such a case, the com- 
mittee-man took sides with the teacher, the miniature 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 49 

war waxed quite fierce. On one occasion, in a quarrel 
over a teacher whom the committee-man would not 
dismiss, hostilities were more than a year in duration. 
All but six children left the school, and the dissenters 
hired a teacher and had a school of their own in one 
of the dissenting farmers' little out-buildings which 
had been used as a broom shop. 

It was the duty of the district committee-man to go after 
the teacher whom he had engaged, if that person lived 
in a neighboring town. The committee-man rarely 
started soon enough to get his charge to the schoolroom 
on time ; and the scholars, who gathered at nine o'clock, 
would "train around and have a gay time" while they 
awaited the teacher's arrival. Sometimes the teacher, 
before beginning, had to be taken to the "examining 
committee" at the town center and his or her qualifi- 
cations tested by sundry questions. In such a case 
the teacher might not reach the schoolhouse ready for 
duty until afternoon. 

We will suppose that the first week in May has come, 
and that the district committee-man has brought the 
new schoolma'am. After leaving her at the schoolhouse, 
he carries her trunk to his home, where it is to stay through 
the term. She is to board round, and it has already 
been decided where her stopping place for the first week 
shall be. Monday noon the children of that particular 



50 The Country School 

home take charge of her, and feel it a great honor to 
escort her to "their house" to dinner. The teacher's 
advent into a family was always the occasion of extra 
preparation in the way of food and "tidying up," and 
conversation while she was present became a more than 
ordinarily serious occupation. 

Boarding round, with its accompanying necessity 
of "visiting," change of quarters, and frequent making 
of new home acquaintances, was something of a hard- 
ship. The teacher found her quarters far from agree- 
able at times; but there was no picking places. The 
best bedroom, to which she was consigned, was perhaps 
stuffy with the gathered must of many months' unoc- 
cupancy, or the people were rough and slatternly in their 
habits, or the food was ill-cooked or scanty. I do not 
mean that these things were the rule, but they wTre to 
the boarder-round, to some extent, unavoidable. 

Schools kept from Monday morning till Saturday 
noon. On Saturday afternoons the teacher went to 
the committee-man's and did her washing. She stayed 
over Sunday and attended church with the family. Some 
week-day evening, after school, she would probably 
again repair to the committee-man's to do her ironing. 

In winter the teacher in some sections found himself 
feasted the whole term through on fresh pork. Fresh 
pork was esteemed one of the most palatable and sub- 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 51 

stantial dishes the farm produced, and, on the principle 
of giving the teacher the best, each family put off hog- 
killing until he came. His invitation, delivered by 
the children, would be: "Our folks are goin' to butcher 
next week, and want you to come to stay at our house." 
Or an excuse for delaying his visit would come in this 
form: "Our folks want you to wait till week after next, 
'cause we're goin' to kill a pig then." The master was 
heartily sick of pork long before the winter was through. 




Passing the water 

Immediately after the morning session began, the 
teacher read a selection from the Testament and ottered 
a short extempore prayer. Children began to attend 



52 The Country School 

school, in summer, soon after they passed their third 
birthday. At tirst they had no books, and their chief 
effort was given to sitting still. They were taught the 
alphabet at the schoolmistress's knee, and perhaps 
she pointed out the letters with a pretty penknife. The 
little folks found that penknife wonderfully attractive, 
and it was a great happiness to handle it and look at 
it when the teacher lent it to them. 

Besides the letters, the teacher taught the smallest 
ones various little poems, such as "Mary had a little 
lamb," "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," and 

" How doth the little busy bee 
Improve each shining hour." 

Then there were certain jingles, which were not only 
poetry, but exercises in arithmetic as well. Fancy a 
little tot solemnly repeating the following : — 

" See me; I am a little child 

Who goes each day to school ; 
And though I am but four years old, 
I'll prove I am no fool. 

" For I can count one, two, three, four, 
Say one and two make three; 
Take one away, and two remain, 
As you may plainly see. 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 53 

" Twice one are two, twice two are four, 
And six is three times two; 
Twice four are eight, twice five are ten; 
And more than this I do. 

" For I can say some pretty rhymes 
About the dog and cat ; 
And sing them very sweetly, too, 
And to keep time I spat. 

" And, more than all, I learn that God 
Made all things that I see ; 
He made the earth, he made the sky, 
He made both you and me." 

This chant was accompanied by appropriate gestures, 
such as counting on the fingers, pointing, and clapping. 
The rhymes and verses learned by the children were 
often repeated in concert, and were one of the features 
of "examination day." Besides the moralizing, the 
arithmetical, and the story-telling verses, the children 
were taught hymns and short poems that were distinctly 
religious in nature. When the teacher's taste was musi- 
cal, they had singing in school, and the virtues of the 
"pure and sparkling water" were extolled in temper- 
ance songs. There was no attempt to teach the children 
to read music, and a book was rarely used. The exercise 
was introduced simply because it was cheerful and agree- 



54 



The Country School 



able, and they all enjoyed it. Sometimes the tune was 
"pitched" by the teacher, sometimes by one of the better 
singers among the pupils. To "pitch" a tune was to 
start it and supposedly get it neither too high nor too low. 




Gymnastics 

By the time the smallest children had the alphabet 
learned they were supplied with a Webster's Speller. 
Later they had a " Child's Guide," or a "Young Reader." 
These books contained some little stories and poems, 
and were illustrated with rude woodcuts, but the owners 
of the books thought the pictures were very pretty. After 
the first reader the child advanced to an "Intelligent 
Reader," and finally to a "Rhetorical Reader." The 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 55 

last-named volume was not illustrated and was bound 
in full buff leather like a law-book. The reading books 
were only used in the afternoon ; but several classes 
read from the New Testament in the morning. The 
Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles were the sections 
which they studied, and these they read straight through, 
skipping nothing but the opening chapter of Matthew, 
which is mainly composed of the hard names of the 
patriarchs. 

The beginners' book in mathematics was Colburn's 
Intellectual Arithmetic. Its first question was, "How 
many thumbs have you on both hands?" but in a few 
pages fractions were reached, and quite intricate problems. 
It was severe training, and the scholars all hated their 
Colburn's, and some of them shed tears in utter dis- 
couragement. After this "mental arithmetic" came 
a "written arithmetic," which was apparently supposed 
by educators to be more difi^cult than the former, but 
which the children found comparatively easy. The 
problems in this they did on their slates. 

Civilization in later days decreed that the proper way 
to make erasures from a slate was to have a bottle of water 
and a rag. In earlier times, and those not very far re- 
moved, the natural method was almost universal ; that 
is, the scholar spit on his slate, rubbed the moisture 
around with the tips of his fingers, then established 



56 The Country School 

a more vigorous friction with the ball of his thumb, 
and finally pohshed his slate off with the back of his 
sleeve. That done, he settled himself down to con- 
quer fresh fields in the mathematical world. 

In the course of time the children began the study 
of Peter Parley's Geography. The book was small 
and square, and it had a number of pictures in it to give 
the child an idea of some of the strange peoples and 
curious animals that are to be found on the earth. For 
instance, there was a picture of a Chinam.an with which 
the young student was sure to be impressed. His eyes 
were slanting, his hair was braided in a "pigtail" that 
hung down his back, he had a conical hat on his head 
and funny shoes on his feet. Across his shoulders he 
bore a wooden yoke, from the ends of which were sus- 
pended by their tails long strings of rats. How could 
the Chinese eat such things? What a strange people 
they were ! Among the small separate pictures of ani- 
mals was one of the hippopotamus — oh ! so large and 
ugly ! — and one of the rhinoceros with a dreadful horn 
right on his nose. It is no wonder if the little girls shud- 
dered when they looked at these pictures. 

Peter Parley in his text by no means confined him- 
self to the technicalities of the subject. He tried to 
be entertaining and informal, and, what would scarcely 
be expected in a geography, he availed himself "of 




A present 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 57 

occasional opportunities to inculcate" lessons of morality 
and religion upon the youthful heart." But the por- 
tion of the text that sank deepest into the memories 
of those who studied the book was a poem in the early 
pages which began thus : — 

" The world is round, and like a ball 
Seems swinging in the air, 
A sky extends around it all, 
And stars are shining there. 
Water and land upon the face 
Of this round world we see 
The land is man's safe dwelling-place 
But ships sail on the sea." 

The more advanced pupils studied Murray's Grammar, 
and found out what nouns, verbs, etc., were, and learned 
to parse blank verse. Then there was Peter Parley's 
History, in two volumes. Volume I dealt with the New 
World, and Volume II began with Adam and the Gar- 
den of Eden, and told the story of the Old World. Only 
the lirst book was usually studied in the district school. 

Another little book to be mentioned was Watts on 
the Improvement of the Mind. This was a deep and 
serious essay on the methods and the desirability of 
mental improvement. It was studied by only the oldest 
scholars, and even they found much of it beyond their 
comprehension. 



58 



The Country School 



At one time the more advanced pupils took up botany. 
The teacher's desk had a vase on it, and during the 
blossom season the botany class kept the vase well 
filled with wild flowers. 

The times were sufficiently advanced so that the chil- 
dren now had "boughten writing books" instead of 
home-made ones, steel pens instead of quills, and in a 
meagre way pencils instead of plummets. The writ- 
ing books were square in shape, ruled inside, but had 




After school 

no printed copies at the top of the page. These the 
master had therefore to set. He was supposed to do 
this each night after school, but if he forgot it, he had 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 59 

to set the copies when the writing hour came. Some 
pupils wrote faster than others, and the smart one who 
filled out his page and still had more time at once desired 
to inform the teacher of his progress and to get a new 
copy. The boy raised his hand, therefore, half rose 
in his seat, and nearly wrung his arm off in a frantic 
effort to get the teacher's immediate attention. Some 
boys would even snap their fingers and clear their throats 
in the very hoarsest and most asthmatic manner of which 
they were capable. These violent methods of attracting 
the teacher's attention were, of course, not confined 
to the writing lesson. 

A common rec[uircment among teachers was that each 
child should recite a verse of Scripture at the close of the 
afternoon session. Hence, when four o'clock approached. 
Bibles were drawn forth, and a diligent search began for 
short verses, and a hasty attempt made to fix the one singled 
out in the mind. There was little solemnity about this 
exercise ; rather, it was farcical and humorous. 

"John, your verse," says the teacher. 

Up pops the boy like a Jack-in-the-box, snaps out, 
"Jesus wept," and with a grin drops into his seat. 

"Pray without ceasing," "Rejoice evermore," "The 
Lord spake unto Moses, saying," are examples of the 
verses which found favor in the children's minds. They 
had the merit of shortness, if no other. The boy was 



6o The Country School 

always serious when he rose, always rattled off the words 

very fast, and beamed with a never failing smile at the 

close of his performance. 

On one occasion a boy's verse ran, "With God all things 

are peculiar." 

"What?" said the teacher, "what was that?" 

The boy repeated his words. The teacher doubted 

their authenticity, and the boy, on the following Sunday, 
went to his original source, which was a motto hung 
in the Sunday-school room at church, and found that 
the lettering in old English text had confused him. What 
it really said was, "With God all things are possible." 

In the middle of each school session came recess. 
First the girls went out for a quarter of an hour, and 
when they were called in, the boys went out for the same 
length of time. Railroads were beginning to be built, 
but through the village of which I write, the old stages 
still ran. When the clatter and rumble denoting the 
approach of one of these vehicles was heard during school 
hours, the eyes of the children were sure to turn toward 
the windows in the hope of catching a tleeting glimpse 
of the big coach as it dashed past. To be out at recess 
when one went by was a great treat. Yet the children 
were a Httle afraid of it — the coach was so large, and, 
drawn by its four horses, it thundered past so swiftly. 
It was an impressive sight, and to the child the passengers 




Ready jar school 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 61 

seemed superior beings, and the whole thing a vivid 
representation of power and of the mystery and vastness 
of the outside world. 

There had been various changes in dress since the be- 
ginning of the century. Homespun had almost disap- 
peared. Not many families could afford to buy "store 
clothes" for their boys, but cloth was purchased ready 
w^oven, and was cut and made at home into the required 
garments. Economy was studied in making up clothing, 
and the mother was careful to cut the suit for the grow- 
ing boy several sizes larger than his present stature de- 
manded. The boy had reason to complain at first of 
the bagginess of his garments, but before they were worn 
out he was pretty sure to be disturbed because of their 
general tightness and of their scantiness at the extremities. 
But this was the common lot of boys, and they might count 
themselves lucky if they were clothed in new store cloth, 
and not in something made over from the cast-off apparel 
of their elders. 

The boys' caps were homemade too, sometimes of 
broadcloth, sometimes of catskin or muskrat skin. Often 
a leather visor was fastened on in front. At the sides were 
earlaps with strings at the ends. When in use the strings 
were tied under the chin ; at other times the earlaps were 
turned up at the side of the cap, and the strings tied over 
the top. 



62 The Country School 

Both boys and girls went to school barefoot in summer, 
but for special occasions had shoes. On the approach of 
cold weather the boys were sure to remind their parents 
that they needed a new pair of boots. These were rough- 
looking cowhides, into the tops of which the boys usually 
tucked their "pant legs." At parties and such other places 
as the tucked-in style would seem out of place, the pants 
were drawn down on the outside of the bootlegs, where 
they developed an irritating and uncontrollable tendency 
to hitch themselves upward. The boots were hardly 
wearable unless they were kept well greased, and even then 
the continual slopping around in snow and water made 
a series of hard wrinkles gather at the ankles. The wrin- 
kles were particularly unyielding on cold mornings. There 
was no right and left nonsense about these broad-soled, 
scjuare-toed boots, and the careful boy took pains to change 
them to opposite feet with regularity. He considered that 
to be the only way to keep them subdued and symmetrical. 

The girls' dresses were of gingham in summer and of 
a fine-checked woollen in winter. They were very plain 
and simple in pattern, and were fastened down the back 
with hooks and eyes. The dresses were longer than are 
now in use, and with them were worn some curious 
garments known as "pantalets." A pantalet was like a 
straight sleeve, fastened just below the knee and extend- 
ing downward to the ankles. It was necessary to tie 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 63 

them quite tightly to keep them from sHpping and they 
were always something of a trial on account of their ten- 
dency not to stay put. They might be either white or 
colored. White stockings were customary. For a Httle girl 
to wear black stockings would have been thought shock- 
ingly inappropriate. In warm weather the girls all wore 
gingham or calico sunbonnets ; in winter quilted hoods, 




Out at liltlc recess 



which were very comfortable and often were bright in color 
and gay with ribbons. They had long plaided coats that 
almost swept the ground and that had a wide cape. x\bout 
their necks they wore knitted tippets. 

The boys had overcoats, but they thought them effemi- 



64 The Country School 

nate, and only put them on in the severest weather. Their 
chief protection from the cold in the way of an extra wrap 
was a striped knitted scarf which they called a "com- 
forter." If the schoolroom was chilly, they might keep their 
comforters wound around their necks all through the school 
session. Every child had a pair of mittens. White was 
the orthodox color for the girls' mittens, and red and 
blue in stripes for the boys'. The shoes worn by the 
girls came barely up to their ankles and were slight pro- 
tection when there was snow on the ground. Their 
feet were "sopping" in winter a good share of the time. 
Through the summer term the girls wore gingham aprons, 
or, in the case of one or two families esteemed "rich," 
black silk ones. 

Among the most vivid recollections that grown-up 
people have of their school days are the memories of the 
punishments inflicted. What then stirred them to fear 
and trembling and anger now lies far off, mellowed by 
the haze of passing years, and though the echoes of the 
old feelings are many times awakened, the punishments 
are, in the main, like episodes in story-land, which we think 
of as onlookers, not as actors. The crude roughness 
and the startling effects produced have lost their old- 
time tragedy, and often have turned humorous. 

"Spare the rod and spoil the child" was a Bible text 
which received the most literal acceptance both in theory 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 65 

and practice. Teachers with tact to govern well with- 
out resort to force were rare, and it was the common 
habit to thrash the school into shape by main strength. 
Indeed, the ability to do this was considered by all the 
elders of that day of prime importance. Even the nat- 
urally mild-tempered man was an ''old-fashioned" 
disciplinarian when it came to teaching, and the naturally 
rude and coarse-grained man was as frightful as any ogre 
in a fairy tale. 

In summer, unless the teacher was an uncommonly 
poor one, or some of the scholars uncommonly wild and 
mischievous, the days moved along very harmoniously 
and pleasantly. In winter, however, when the big boys 
came in, some of them men grown, who cared vastly 
more about having a good time than getting learning, 
an important requisite of the master was "government." 
He ruled his little empire, not with a rod of iron, but with 
a stout three-foot ruler, known as a "ferule," which was 
quite as effective. 

Some of the big boys who were there "just to raise the 
mischief," would perhaps dare the master to go outside 
and fight. Of course he wouldn't do that, but at times 
he had quite serious scuffles with rebellious pupils right in 
the schoolroom. The boys, on their part, would fight Hke 
tigers and make the master's nose bleed and tear his 
clothes. 



66 The Country School 

The really severe teacher had no hesitation in throwing 
his ferule at any child he saw misbehaving, and it is to 
be noted that he threw first and spoke afterward. Very 
likely he would order the culprit to bring him the ferule 
he had cast at him, and when the boy came out on the 
floor would further punish him. Punishment by spatting 
the palm of the hand with a ruler was known as " feruling." 
The smarting of the blows was severe wdiile the punish- 
ment lasted, but this was as nothing to a "thrashing." 
The boy to be thrashed was himself sent out to cut the 
apple-tree twigs with which he was to be whipped. Poor 
fellow ! Whimpering, and blinded by the welling tears, 
he slowly whittles off one after another of the tough 
twigs. This task done, he drags his unwilling feet back 
to the schoolroom. 

"Take off your coat, sir !" says the master. 

The school is hushed into terrified silence. The fire 
crackles in the wide fireplace, the wind whistles at the 
eaves. The boy's tears flow faster, and he stammers a 
plea for mercy. Then the whip hisses through the air, 
and blows fall thick and fast. The boy dances about 
the floor, and his shrill screams fill the schoolroom. His 
mates are frightened and trembling, and the girls are cry- 
ing. When the sobbing boy is sent to his place, whatever 
his misdemeanor may have been, the severity of the pun- 
ishment has won him the sympathy of the whole school, 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 67 

and toward the master there are only feelings of fear and 
hate. As for the culprit, he in his heart vows vengeance, 
and longs for the day when he shall have the age and 
stature to thrash the teacher in return. Occasionally a 
lad sent after switches made use of his liberty to slip off 
home, but he had to "catch it" when he came to school 
the next day. 

As one of the old-time pupils expresses it, "The men 
teachers were often regular rough-cuts." One master 
of this class, when he noticed a boy misbehaving, had a 
habit of rushing at the culprit, catching him by the collar, 
and dashing him over the desks out to open floor space, 




Loiler!>ig on the way home from school 



68 The Country School 

where he would administer a thrashing. The children 
thought he acted as if he was going to kill the boy. 

The most troublesome boys were not by any means 
always ill-natured. Often they were merely mischievous. 
The trouble might be due to an active mind and lack of 
employment. A boy w^ho learned his lessons easily would 
have a lot of time on his hands. He couldn't keep still, 
and presently the teacher would catch him doing some- 
thing that he ought not to do. Then he got a whipping. 
Very likely he might be a cordy little rascal, afraid of 
nothing, and about as disagreeable to tackle as a healthy 
hornet. The encounter was no fun for the teacher; 
and the boy, if he was punished frequently and severely, 
planned to lick that teacher when he grew up. But I 
never have heard of a boy who took this delayed vengeance. 

Doubtless the whippings of the period varied much in 
severity, and, unless the master was altogether brutal 
or angered, the blows were tempered according to the size 
of the boy and the enormity of his offence. Nor were the 
bov's cries always a criterion of the amount of the hurt. 
It was manifestly for his interest to appear in such ter- 
rible distress as to rouse the master's pity, and with this 
in mind he to some extent gauged his cries. Neverthe- 
less, the spectacle was not an edifying one, and happily 
the school thrashing as a method of separating the chaff 
from the wheat in boy nature is a thing of the past. 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 69 

The list of milder punishments was a varied one. If 
the master saw two boys whispering, he would, if circum- 




.1 punishment 

stances favored, steal up to them from behind and visit 
unexpected retribution on the guilty lads by catching 
them by the collars and cracking their heads together. 
Frequently an offender was ordered out on the floor to 
stand for a time by the master's desk, or he was sent to 
a corner with his face to the wall, or was asked to stand 
on one leg for a time, or he was assigned a passage of 
Scripture and told to stay after school until he had learned 
and recited it correctly to the teacher. In certain cases 
he was made to hold one arm out at right angles to his 



/° The Country School 

body -a very easy and simple thing to do for a short 
time, but fraught with painful discomfort if long continued 
Sometimes this punishment was made doublv hard bv 
forcmg the scholar to support a book or other weight 
at the same time. When the arm began to sag, the teacher 
would mquire with feigned solicitude what the trouble 
was, and perhaps would give the bov a rap on hi. -crazy 
bone- with the ruler to encourage him to persevere. 
This process soon brought a child to tears, and then the 
teacher was apt to relent and send him to his seat. 

Making a girl sit with the boys, or a bov with the cjrls 
was another punishment. The severitv of this depended 
on the nature of the one punished. For the timid and 
bashful It was a terrible disgrace. 

Some of the punishments produced vcrv strikino- spec- 
tacular effects, to which the present-dav mind woidd feel 
quite a^•erse. Fancy the sight of a bov and girl guiltv of 
some misdemeanor standing in the teacher's heavv arm- 
cnair, the girl wearing the boy's hat and the bov adorned 
^vith the girl's sunbonnet. Both are red-faced and tearful 
with mortified pride. They preserve with difficultv a 
precarious balance on their narrow footing, and ever^• 
movement of one causes the other to gasp and to clutch 
hastily to preN-ent inglorious downfall. 

To sit on the end of a ruler, which the teacher pre.entlv 
knocked from under the boy, was considered by some 




K, 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 71 

pedagogs an effective punishment. One master used to 
have the offending youngster bend over with his head under 
the table. Then the teacher whacked the culprit from 
behind with his heavy ruler, and sent him shooting under 
the table and sprawling across the floor. Another school- 
master kept in the entry an old satchel which he would 
bring in on occasion, throw it on the floor, and order the 
offender to lie down with that for a pillow. Among the 
most ingenious and uncomfortable in the varied list of 
punishments was the fitting a cut from a green twig, par- 
tially split, to the offender's nose. In cases of lying, this 
rude pair of pinchers was attached to the scholar's tongue. 

As an example of the brutal extreme to which some 
masters went, I cite the case of a teacher who threatened 
on occasion to cut off the children's ears. Imagine the 
whole school hstcning with breathless and open-eyed 
horror while the master, sitting in his chair with a little 
girl standing before him, is explaining the process of 
ear-cutting, and at the same time whetting his knife on 
his stout boot. He would go so far as to rise and rub the 
back of the blade along the child's ears. The scholars 
soon saw he was not to be believed, but the threat was 
too frightful to altogether lose its dread, however often 
repeated. 

The women teachers were often as vigorous discipli- 
narians as the men, and capable of originating methods 



y2 The Country School 

of their o^xn that were truly distressing. For instance, 
one teacher would have the smaller offenders put out their 
tongues, which she would proceed to snap with a bit of 
whalebone. Oh, how that hurt! This punishment 
seemed to them the meanest that could be invented. 

Boxing ears, keeping in at recess or after school, and 
the confiscation of playthings which hindered the youth- 
ful mind in its pursuit of knowledge were mild visitations 
of the law that only need mention. Jack-knives frequently 
figured among the contraband articles locked in-the teach- 
er's desk; for what boy can behold a piece of soft pine 
wood in any shape whatever without desiring to whittle 
it? The desks offered an inviting surface on which the 
boy itched to carve his initials, and that done, he was 
inspired to put a few added touches and simple designs 
on the rest of the space within reach. If the beloved 
jack-knife was captured by the teacher and held in du- 
rance, the boy still had recourse to his pencils, and with 
these could make in the soft wood various indentations 
and markings pleasing to his soul. 

In describing the schoolroom interior, only one chair 
was mentioned; but there was another which had long 
since seen its best days and was now minus its back. On 
it the boy w^ho did not learn his lessons was sometimes 
required to sit with a fool's cap on his head. This treat- 
ment was expected not only to shame the boy, but to serve 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 -^-^^ 

as a warning example to the school. His cap was usually 
improvised by the teacher out of a sheet of white paper 
or even a newspaper. Some teachers, however, had a 
fool's cap ready made. One such cap that was particularly 
elaborate had a tassel on top and tassels at each of the three 
corners below, and on its front was painted the word 
" DUNCE " in large capitals. 

The games of the children were much the same as those 
of earlier days. In winter there was a good deal of rough 
skirmishing among the boys, snowballing and ducking 
each other when chance offered. The small children at 
times fared hardly, and once in a while a girl had a severe 
experience when her mates took a notion to wrap her in 
her long cloak and bury her in a snowdrift. As soon as 
the burying was accomplished, the buryers would run 
away, and the buried would struggle out half suffocated 
and bedraggled with snow from head to foot. "Snap- 
the-whip" was a popular game when the snow was deep. 
The children, except the one most concerned, thought 
it great fun, and shouted in glee every time the whip 
snapped and the little end boy or girl broke loose to spin 
head over heels into a drift. 

On stormy winter days, when the children all brought 
their dinners and the teacher was not there, the excited 
racing and tearing around that was done in the httle room 
at noon gave a vivid though unconscious representation 



y^ The Country School 

of Babel and Bedlam. At the same time there was a 
good deal of running in and out, and the floor by 
schoohime was mottled all over with snow and water. 

Sliding was in order when there was a crust on the 
snow. The sleds were great home-made affairs that three 
or four could sit on if need be. Sleds were usually shod 
with hard-wood runners, but some boys went to the 
blacksmith's and had their sleds fitted with runners of 
iron. The boy owner of a sled was expected, on the down- 
hill trips, to sit behind and steer. With his square-toed 
boot grating along behind he could make the sled go just 
where he pleased. In good sliding weather boot-toes 
disappeared wonderfully fast, and he was a lucky fellow 
whose footwear did not begin to gape at the extremities 
before spring. Presently some genius invented a copper- 
toed boot, which no doubt "filled a long-felt want," for 
the inventor realized a fortune by it. 

Children who could not afford a sled would make some- 
thing that served instead out of barrel staves. Three 
or four staves laid close together did for the bottom, and 
as many more bowed over above did for the top. The 
ends of the staves where they met were nailed together, 
and the staves were also nailed to a brace run through 
the middle of the contrivance. 

Favorite summer games were tag, drop-the-handker- 
chief, puss-in-the-corner, and, most popular of any, there 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 75 




Playing drop the handkerchief 



was hide-and-coop, which was also called hi-spy. In play- 
ing this, the children who hid always shouted "Co-o-op !" 
as soon as they had concealed themselves ; and each time 
the one who was "it" caught sight of any of the hiders, 
he ran and touched the goal and hollered, "Hi-spy Jim !" 
or Jane, or whatever the one's name might be. 

He should have said, "I spy," but that was contrary 
to the established custom. The girls jumped rope a good 
deal. They would jump to and from school, and at recess 



~6 The Countn* School 

would try to see who could jump the most without missing. 
In fact, they jumped im.til they were exhausted. 

The surroundings of the schoolhouse were half wild 
and contained many delightful possibilities for pleasure. 
A little way down the road was a large tree, under which 
in s limm er the children played cubbyhouse. Xear by was 
a sjood-sized brook bordered bv brushv woods, and in 
the thickets the little folks gathered patches of green moss, 
with which they would cover a square of earth under the 
tree; and that was the foundation of the cubbyhouse. 
They brought from home broken pieces of dishes, bits of 
carpet, and other odds and ends for furniture and house- 
ware. Acorn cups did for tea-cups, and the children 
made fancy little pails out of brown oak baUs by cutting 
oflt a portion, hoUowing out the rest, and fixing in a slender 
leaf stem for a handle. With some short pieces of board 
they contrived shelves for the dishes. In connection with 
the cubbyhouses they made some small inclosures and 
caught toads and put them in. these pens. They called 
the toads their pigs. The older scholars played they were 
parents and had the smaller ones for their children, though 
to some extent they brought their dolls to 5er\-e in this 
capacity. 

Most of the children came so far they had to take their 
dinners. In pleasant, warm weather they ate at the cubby- 
houses. They carried their food in. tin pails, and often 



The Schools between 1830 and i860 ']'] 

entertained themselves by swapping portions with each 
other. 

Of all the playtime resorts the favorite was the brook, 
just across the road from the schoolhouse. In winter 
they scampered over to it at recess and got bits of ice 
which they would smuggle into the schoolroom and se- 
crete and nibble at on the sly. In summer thev waded 
and splashed in the shallows of the stream and caught 
pollywogs and minnows with their bare hands. 

Perhaps the most striking use they ever made of the 
stream was to play at baptizing in it. The chief church 
of the town was of the Baptist denomination, and it was 
the custom to baptize converts in some convenient stream. 
When a ceremony was to take place, the minister and con- 
vert, both in black robes, walked down into the stream, 
while the rest of the congregation clustered on the shore, 
singing : — 

" On Jordan's stormy bank I stand 

And cast a wistful eye 

To Canaan's fair and happy land, 

Where my possessions lie." 

Then the minister took hold of his companion and said, 
"I baptize thee in the name, of the Father, of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost." 

With these words he laid the convert over backward 
into the water. If it was winter and the stream was frozen. 



78 



The Country School 



a passage was cut through the ice from the shore into deep 
enough water to do the baptizing thoroughly. To persons 
unfamihar with such customs this may sound rude and 
strange, but to most in that vicinity the ceremony was as 
impressive as it was interesting. 

The children in their play copied all the details of the 
baptism, very closely, except that the girl who acted as 
convert was not immersed in the water, but only dabbled 
a little. 




In the meadow at recess 



IV 
LATER CHARACTERISTICS, i860 to 1900 

ATYPICAL country school of this comparatively 
recent period was that at a small outlying 
hamlet which I shall call Riverbend. One of 
its attendants was Charlie Smithson. He began to go 
regularly before he had reached his fifth birthday. On 
the first occasion that he went to school he was escorted 
thither by an older brother. 

The little brick schoolhouse was only a five-minutes' 
walk from their home, if they went straight there without 
loitering. This morning they were early enough to play 
for a while with the other children in the schoolyard. But 
presently the bell rang. A tremor of alarm ran through 
Charlie's breast. The clangor of the bell filled him with 
fear, and the open schoolhouse door looked ominous. He 
turned away and began to kick up the dust in all haste on 
his way toward home. His older brother was shocked at 
this disregard of the necessity of getting an education. He 
promptly gave chase, caught the runaway, and dragged 
him back to the schoolhouse. 

Charlie found it not so bad after all when he was once 

79 



8o 



The Country School 



inside, and in a few days he was as willing to attend as 
any of the other children. His mother always brushed his 



S. 




A schoolboy 

hair and slicked him up before he started, and was careful 
that he should start on time. He was very confidential 
with her when she was getting him ready, especially if 



Later Characteristics 



8i 



they were alone together and not too hurried. He even 
told her, once, of the bad words some of the big boys used. 
"Those are not nice," was her comment. "You won't 
use them, will you?" 

He looked up into her face and replied with an honest 
"No." 

The small children were sent more to relieve their 
mothers than for study, and for the first year Charlie had 
not much to do. He came out on the floor twice each 
day to learn his letters from some big white cards that 
had pictures on them; he listened to the others, and 
he was allowed to play with a fascinating counting-frame 
made of wires strung with blue, black, yellow, and green 
wooden beads. Sometimes the teacher let him lie do\\Ti 




The Rivcrbcnd school !u 



82 The Country School 

on the bench, with her shawl under his head for a pillow, 
and go to sleep; and once he fell off on the floor. The 
shock made him awake with a sudden start. 

There were now three terms in the school year — a 
long winter term of twelve weeks and a spring and a fall 
term of ten weeks each. It was so much the custom for 
the teacher to be a woman that a man teacher in a primary 
school was looked on as a good deal of a curiosity. In all 
the time that Charhe attended the district school he only 
had one man teacher, and he taught only one winter 
term. Saturday had become a full holiday. "Boarding 
round" for the teacher had long ago been discontinued, 
and was now thought a " strange custom of the olden times." 

Teachers, as a rule, were picked from among the young 
women of the home neighborhood. They were paid 
five or six dollars a week. In case a teacher came from 
another town, she boarded at a neighbor's in the school- 
house vicinity at a weekly cost of two, two and a half, or 
possibly three dollars. The teacher, for the time being, 
was adopted as one of the family at her boarding-place. 
She would probably keep her own bedroom in order and 
help with the household work, at least to the extent of wip- 
ing the breakfast and supper dishes ; and on such noons 
as the rest of the folks were gone, she got dinner for the 
hired man. 

The schoolhouse at Riverbend was more roomy than 



Later Characteristics 



83 




The commonest type oj the country schoolhouse 
those Of most hamlets. It was also more substantially 
built, for the community that possessed a brick edifice 
was exceptional. Diminutive wooden buildings, painted 
white, were the rule. Riverbend schoolhouse stood on a 
low hill which was hardly more than a terrace. The little 
yard was hemmed in on three sides by a high and slivery 
board fence. In front was a white-painted quarter- 
board fence that, in its first days, had a good deal of style 
about it; but the boys rode that off in a very short time. 



84 



The Country School 



and, indeed, it was not long before boards, posts, and all 
were gone. The other fence was more formidable and 
withstood the ravages of time and the boys much longer. 

But successive climbing- 
overs, whackings, and the 
demand for see-saw boards 
made it disappear piece- 
meal, until there was left 
only one knotty cedar 
post, to which the com- 
mittee-man hitched his 
horse when he called. 

Among the advantages 
of having the school build- 
ing of brick instead of 
wood was the fact that 
its outer walls furnished 
an excellent surface to 
sharpen slate pencils on. 
Once in a while there 
came a teacher to whose 
Sharpening his slate pencil aesthetic eye the gray 

blotches which decorated the bricks about the entrance 
were not pleasing. Word of command was thereupon 
passed that the scholars should do their pencil sharp- 
ening instead on the heavy stone step before the door. 




Later Characteristics gc- 

At a back corner of the schoolyard stood a rickety 
httle building that served for a wood shed. It was un- 
painted and battered, and had a decrepit tendency to 
lean sideways, and always had a look of great age. 

The interior of the schoolhouse consisted "of a long 
entry, and beyond that the main room. At the rear of 
the latter were sixteen box desks. These desks were long 
enough to accommodate two pupils, but while Charlie 
Smithson went to school, the number of scholars was never 
so large but that each could have a whole desk to himself 
The children left the district school younger than formerly 
to attend the grammar and high schools at the center 
The rear seats in the room, which were monopolized 
by the largest and oldest scholars, were thought the most 
desirable ones. There was only a straight-up wall for a 
back, and the wind came in rather too freely at the cracks 
on cold days, but the remoteness from the teacher and 
the all-encompassing view of the room that the position 
afforded were sufficient compensations. 

In the open space in front of the seats were the teacher's 
desk, two chairs, and the box stove, which sent a long reach 
of rusty pipe across the room. On the wall behind the 
teacher's desk was a long blackboard, and there were 
other blackboards between the north and south windows. 
Beneath these last, against the wall, ran a bench, on which 
the little scholars stood when they were at the board, and 



g5 The Country School 

which was hberally tattooed with imprints from the nails ] 

in the bottoms of their shoes. \ 




A class in geography 

The walls of the room were adorned with a geometrically 
figured paper that inclined to brownness and melancholy 
in its general tone. In places it had started to crack off, 
and in one or two spots was stained by leaks from the roof. 
The woodwork of the walls and doors was painted yellow 
with a graining to represent polished wood. The desks 
and benches were painted green - all except the tops of 
the desks, which were white. These soft pine desk-tops 
offered facilities for hand-carving and origmal decora- 



Later Characteristics 



87 



tion, which had inspired the pupils to do a good deal of 
work on their once fair surface with their jack-knives and 
pencils. It was on the boys' side that the desks were 
most energetically cut up, the girls' genius running more 
to mild pencilings. 

In the middle of the ceiling was a small square hole 
with a little door iitted to it, and known as ''the venti- 
lator." Originally there was a string attached to it by 
which it could be worked from below. However, strings 
are by nature perishable, and presently that string was no 
more. After that the boys, when they happened to think 
of it, would clamber up the unfinished wall in the entry 







Going to school with the teacher 



gg The Country School 

and pick a precarious way along tire dark and still more 
unfinished loft and open the ventilator, or shut ,. as the 
case might be. At the same time they usually called do™ 
a few remarks through the hole to the other scholars and 
threw some bits of plastering at them. At length havmg 
properly adjusted the ventilator and thus insured the health 
of the school, the boys descended, and for some t.me 
afterward occupied themselves in freeing the.r clothes 
from the dust and cobwebs they had gathered. 

In the way of art the schoolroom had three or four smal 
chromos; in the way of inspiration, a dark portra,. of 
Abraham Lincoln in a still darker frame. In the way 
of helps there was a somewhat antiquated wall map of 
the United States, and on the teacher's desk a smal g^obe 
The teacher's desk was quite modem. It was of black 
walnut, and it had a green oilcloth cover on its td and a 
pretty balustrade at the back. The scholars adm.red ,t 
very much when it was first put in. Of course, use and 
age made it totter on its legs, and from time to t,me it 
was found necessary that it should undergo a course 
of gluings and wirings. These were administered by a 
village farmer. Many of the farmers numbered carpen- 
tering among their accomplishments, but this part.cular 
person, by reason of his special attainments, m.ght fa.r y 
be desi^ated the community's prize tinUerer. He cou d 
patch the roof; he could clean the stovep.pe. He was 



Later Characteristics 89 

appealed to when the door wouldn't lock, and he was 
appealed to when it wouldn't unlock. When the paint 
wore off the blackboard, he put on fresh. When a window- 
pane was broken, he got a new one and came do\\Ti some 
evening with his putty, tools, and a lantern and put it in. 
He even took the clock in hand w^hen it proved refractory. 
In short, if anything was the matter, or the teacher at any 
time was inspired with a new idea in the schoolroom 
economy, he was forthwith sent for. 

In the corner of the room next to the stove was a big 
woodbox, unpainted and much battered, which, like most 
things in the world, came to pieces oftener than seemed 
strictly necessary. The sto\'e, too, had its failings. There 
were days when it smoked, and at times its actions not 
only puzzled the scholars and the teacher, but the village 
carpenter as well. However, he would examine the stove 
some day after school, while he improved the opportunity, 
at the same time, to eat an apple. He would see that the 
joints in the long pipe were all right, and adjust the 
wires by which it was suspended from the ceiling. He 
might even bring a ladder from home, climb the school- 
house roof, and look down the chimney. After that the 
stove, if it had any conscience whatever, probably behaved 
better. 

One of the boys among the pupils held the office of 
fire-tender and floor- sweeper right through the term. He 



90 



The Country School 



came early mornings to start the fire and have the room 
well warmed by schooltime, and once or twice a week 
he swept the floor. For this work he received one dollar 
at the end of the term, or possibly two dollars for a winter 
term. Not every boy had the genius to make the fire go 




Starting the pre 

well, for the ashes had to be poked just about right to 
make the draft good, and the stove door was broken in 
two pieces, and it required care to adjust it so it would in 
effect be whole and stay whole. Those hard-wood fires 
could be made tremendously hot on occasion. Once a 
certain boy who was suft'ering for amusement loaded the 



Later Characteristics 91 

stove as full of wood as it would hold just before school- 
time, that he might have the joy of witnessing the teacher's 
consternation when she came in and school began. Yes, 
the teacher observed the heat and the baked condition 
of the air, and sought out the boy who was answerable for 
the crime. She told him that, as he had such a liking for 
heat, perhaps he would be glad to stand by the stove and 
enjoy it. This suggestion was not one that filled him with 
delight, but the teacher would accept no excuse ; and he 
was soon perspiring and repenting at the side of the stove. 
But he was a gritty fellow, and when, just before recess, 
the teacher asked how he liked it, he said, "First rate." 

"Oh, well," was the teacher's response, "if you enjoy 
it so very much, you may spend your recess, too, by the 
stove." 

Then the boy saw the unwisdom of his reply. However, 
the sentence was passed, and there was no help for it. 
That particular boy made no more hot fires. 

Occasionally, one of the older lads would bring a little 
red pepper or brimstone and sprinkle it on the stove and 
by these means make the teacher and the pupils sneeze. 
The boys liked also to put snowballs on the stove to see 
them sizzle. This contributed to their happiness, perhaps, 
but it was not good for the stove, which as a result was 
badly cracked. 

On the bench by the woodbox was set the water pail. 



02 The Country School 

Beside it was the drinking utensil, sometimes a tin cup, 
sometimes a glass tumbler, and at one time a little cus- 
tard cup. It was astonishing how many times a scholar 
could drink that custard cup full when he made the at- 
tempt. The small boy in the front seat would drink as 
much as he could hold, and then turn around and watch 
the progress of the water pail to observe if any one could 
exceed him. If the pail-bearer had a grudge against any 
particular one, or was humorously inclined, he might 
snatch the cup away before the drinker had taken more 
than a mouthful or two, or would give the cup a gentle 
but sudden tilt that inundated the drinker in a small 
way. The oifice of water-passer seemed to be quite 
desirable, and "May I pass the water?" was a question 
which required frequent answer from the teacher. 

The water was brought from the nearest neighbor's. 
A big boy could get it alone, but usually two went to carry 
the pail. In the interregnums between the wearing out 
of one pail and the getting a new one, the scholars all raced 
over to "Uncle Elijah's" each recess to refresh themselves 
at the tub of running spring water which stood at his back 
door. 

The clock has been mentioned. That was a recent 
innovation. For many years after the reign of the hour- 
glass and sundial the teachers had been accustomed to 
carry watches, but a schoolroom clock was a very recent 



Later Characteristics 



93 




Fir^it day U'dili)ig jor the ifachcr 

idea. This one was bought by a subscription that the 
scholars raised among their respective parents, and it was 
fastened to the wall over one of the blackboards, where the 
children could note how time flew, though it must be con- 
fessed they usually thought time did not fly at all, but on 
the contrary went very slowly. 

Another village subscription supplied the schoolroom 
with a number of lamps, which, with their shining tin 



94 The Country School 

reflectors, had been fastened up at intervals along the walls. 
These saved the trouble of bringing from the homes lamps 
and lanterns for illuminating purposes every time the vil- 
lagers gathered for a lyccum, or a Christmas tree, or an 
evening prayer-meeting. 

School began at nine o'clock, with reading a chapter from 
the New Testament. The scholars read in turn two 
verses each as long as the chapter lasted, and then put their 
arms on the desks, bowed their heads on them, and with 
the teacher repeated the Lord's Prayer in concert. Next 
came the clatter of getting out books and other work- 
ing apparatus, and the asking of questions and making 
requests of the teacher. In a few minutes they had set- 
tled dowm to their tasks, and the teacher began hearing 
recitations. The A-B-C class was called first, then the 
class in the First Reader, then the class in the Second 
Reader, and so on. The teacher had on her desk a little 
bronze bell with a wooden handle, which she tinkled to 
call and dismiss the classes. Each class was expected 
to stand in a straight line, toeing a certain crack in the 
floor which possessed greater merits for a toe-line than its 
fellows because it had more width. 

As the forenoon wore on, the smallest children were 
allowed to go out for what was called the "little recess," 
provided it was summer time. Just how they amused 
themselves it is not easy to say, for the youngest children 



Later Characteristics 



95 



manage to ha\'e a very good time with the \'ery simplest 
of accessories. North and cast of the schoolhouse were 
apple orchards, where the scholars were privileged to help 
themselves to such fruit as they found lying on the ground. 
Just outside the school yard was a great maple, and down 
the road a short distance was another nearly as large. 
In the spring these trees dropped quantities of their winged 
seeds into the grass. If you laid them on the hard dirt 
and stepped on them just right, they would burst with a 
faint pop. A child dearly loves a pop, be it great or small, 




Cubbyhouse dolls 



and will expend a good deal of time and ingenuity de- 
vising means whereby he can make things explode and 



96 The Country School 

rejoice his soul with the sound produced — the more vio- 
lent, the better. 

There was one period when nearly every boy had an 
empty tin can with a string run through the bottom and 
fastened to a stick. This contrivance, when its possessor 
whirled it about his head, made the most horrible noise 
that can be imagined. No one except the boys could 
stand the racket thus produced, but they gloated over 
it. Discordant sounds never disturbed their sense of 
harmony. 

One boy in the school was so organized that he could 
throw his thumbs out of joint, at the same time producing 
a quite perceptible cracking sound. He was looked up 
to as an authority and genius in the matter of poppings 
and crackings. He could also, by opening his mouth 
and rapping on his head with his knuckles, produce a 
dubious and hollow sound that would make one think his 
head was nearly empty. Perhaps it was ! 

A paper bag blown full of air and crushed made a de- 
lightfully loud explosion, but these bags seldom found 
their way to the schoolhouse. The best poppers within 
reach were large leaves, which were laid across a circle 
made by the thumb and forefinger of the left hand and 
slapped with the palm of the right. The girls could make 
very pretty wreaths of the maple leaves, weaving them 
together by means of their long stems. Dandelions in 




A hard sum 



Later Characteristics 97 

the season were a source of amusement. "I'm going to 
see whether my mother wants me or not," says Jenny. 
She draws in a fuU breath and blows very hard at the 
white dandehon head held before her pursed lips. If all 
the seeds are blown away, she knows her mother does 
want her ; but if any remain, it is settled that she is 
not then needed. The long, hollow dandelion stems, 
if held in the mouth and split slowly with the tongue, 
curled in two very neat and tight rolls. When shaken 
out, these formed spirals that, hung over the ears, made 
quite enticing earrings. 

Another useful flower was the buttercup. It was an 
excellent medium by which to determine the important 
question whether one loved butter or not. Just hold it 
under Jenny's or Johnny's chin, and if you see a yellow 
reflection from its burnished petals, that is a sure sign 
that he or she loves butter. 

Beside the road, near by, were some great coarse bur- 
dock plants. The green and purple burs could be stuck 
together into very neat baskets. Then there was a sturdy 
dooryard plant, the mallow, whose round, flat seeds were 
called by the children "cheeses," and which were con- 
sidered quite good eating. Sorrel leaves and clover blos- 
soms were other sources of food supply. 

Back of the schoolhouse was a wide meadow where the 
children out at "little reces.s" chased the butterflies with 



Lore. 



98 



The Country School 



their straw hats, and gathered bouquets of the flowers 
that grew among the grasses. The best of all the sources 
of pleasure anywhere near was a httle brook that ran along 
the borders of the meadow. There were endless possi- 
biUties of fun in that bit of water. The children could 
paddle in it, they could sail things on it, they could wet 
up their mud pies, and they could build a dam that would 
make it overflow its banks. In winter, if the season fa- 




A drink jrom a stream on the way home jrom^ school 



Later Characteristics qq 

vored, the brook filled two or three of the meadow hollows. 
These, when frozen over, made excellent skating ground. 
The scholars were often on the ice before it was fairly 
safe. There was a pleasurable excitement to the venture- 
some ones in sliding on a "bender." A bender was 
made by sliding across weak ice which cracked as you 
slid. The longer the sliding was continued, the more the 
ice sagged beneath each passing weight; and the more it 
bent, the greater waxed the excitement. Finally, some 
one broke through and got his feet wet, and then the'crowd 
all went up to the schoolhouse satisiied. 

In warm weather, when the whole school came out for 
the "big recess," the favorite game was ball. This was 
more particularly a boy's game, though the girls played 
too, sometimes. After the grass was cut they liked to have 
their ball game in the meadow, but for the most part they 
contented themselves with the dusty roadway. Playing 
horse was in high esteem, and at times even the charms 
of the ball game paled before the delights of racing, and 
every child carried around ten or fifteen feet of string in 
his or her pocket. There were all kinds of horses, from 
"Stick-in-the-Mud" to "Maud S"; from the trained 
circus-horse to the wild horses of the plains. The schol- 
ars drove each other to school, and they drove each other 
home, and raced at every opportunity between whiles. 
"Jail" was another game played. The woodhouse 



100 The Country School 

served as a prison, and the jailor caught the prisoners 
running, and in imagination he shut them up there ; 
but as the woodhouse had no door, it was necessary that 
those caught should agree not to break out. "Bear" 
was played in something the same way. The woodhouse 
was the bear's den, and thence he issued forth and cap- 
tured the others. In the fall great piles of fallen leaves 
were raked together, and the "bear" was covered up in 
them. The school gathered around the heap, and then 
the "bear" sprang out with terrible growls and a grand 
scattering of leaves, and chased whichever of the children 
came handiest. 

In winter, besides sliding and skating, there was a good 
deal of desultory snowballing. Sometimes the snow- 
balling went far beyond the bounds of gentleness or mis- 
chief, and the white missiles were hurled in swift anger 
and there were fights, and faces were washed, and the 
vanquished were ducked in the snowbanks. This was 
not a serious matter to the big boys, but the little fellows 
had some hard experiences. Let some great rough boy 
catch a httle one and proceed to jam him into a drift, 
or let the big fellow chase the small one with a threatening 
snowball — there will be few occasions in all the trembling, 
gasping Httle lad's after-hfe when he will suffer such terror. 
At the time Charlie Smithson first went to school there 
was one big Irish boy by the name of Jim Londergrass 



Later Characteristics 



loi 



who acted as a protector to the small children. He was 
a most good-natured fellow, and he would allow the boys 
to throw snow at him 



and knock him about 
as much as they 
pleased; but if any 
of them were rough 
with a little one, they 
heard from him very 
quickly. Jim left 
school in a year or 
two and went awa\' 
to work. Charlie has 
never heard from him 
since, but Jim has 
always been treasured 
in his memory as a 
true knight and hero. 
At times the boys 
divided into sides and 
had pitched battles 
with their snowballs. 
Once they built a 



'Wf::^0!^>:, 




The youngest scholar 



snow fort and planned for a fight that was to be particu- 
larly grand. Some of the boys prepared frozen snow- 
balls for the occasion. Luckily, a thaw set in which 



102 



The Country School 




Doing arithmetic cxai)iples 



laid the fort in ruins, and this desperate battle was not 
fought. 

After the morning recess the several classes in arith- 
metic recited. All but the very highest schoolbooks 
were illustrated quite fully, even the arithmetics; and 
each book had a picture on its board covers. When 
reciting in mathematics, the scholars stood a part of the 
time in line and answered questions and repeated rules, 
and a part of the time "did examples on the board." 

There was one teacher who kept Charlie Smithson on 
the multiplication table a whole term, in spite of the fact 
that he told her he was much beyond that. He got so 
he could say it over frontward and backward, beginning 



Later Characteristics 103 

at either end or in the middle, and he frequently covered 
one of the small blackboards with it written out, from 
2 X 1 = 2 to 12 X 12 = 144. 

Charlie's most serious trouble with arithmetic came 
when he met with long division. For several days he 
studied the new problems and attempted them on his 
slate, but they seemed hopelessly entangled. A boy 
from a neighboring town visited school about that time, 
and, though no older than Charlie, it was said he could 
do examples in long division. Charlie regarded him as 
a prodigy, and sank in deeper gloom. But one day light 
burst on his mind, and after that he could only wonder 
what it was that had puzzled him. 

All the children struck snags of some sort in their arith- 
metic. Once a class was doing examples at the black- 
board, and the teacher tested their capacity by giving them 
a few problems not in the book. Among the rest was 
this : — 

" How many years have passed since our forefathers 
landed at Plymouth?" 

Most of the children put down their dates, and there was 
a sharp rattle and scraping of crayons as they each hurried 
to get the answer as near first as might be. Soon most 
of them had finished, and some had the right answer and 
some had not. 

There was one little girl, however, with her nose to the 



104 The Country School 

blackboard, and standing first on one foot and then on 
the other, who was making no progress. She had the 
date 1620 written down and under it a figure 4, and that 
was all. 

"Well, Katy," said the teacher, "what does the one 
thousand six hundred and twenty stand for?" 

"That was when they landed," was Katy's reply. 

"Very good," responded the teacher; "but the 4 — 
what is that for?" 

"That," said Katy, fingering her chalk nervously, "is 
for our four fathers ; but I don't know whether to multiply 
or divide." 

Sometimes the whole school joined in a mental arith- 
metic exercise. The teacher would say, "Add two and 
two; multiply by four; take away six; divide by five," 
etc., and after a while ask, "Now, how many of you have 
the answer?" 

Up would go the hands of those who had been able to 
follow the processes, or thought they had, and the teacher 
would call on some one for the answer. This exercise 
was considered very exciting and interesting. 

The afternoon began with another hearing of the read- 
ing classes/J then followed the class in grammar, one in 
history, and the afternoon closed with the geography 
classes. In the geography lessons the children often drew 
maps on the boards. Sometimes they drew them off- 



Later Characteristics 



105 



hand, and sometimes they used straight-Hned diagrams 
to help them make what they drew more hke the real 
things. 

When Charlie got his first new geography book, and 
the class was organized, he went at the study with great 
energy and even took his book home. On the morning 




A New England academy 

of the day they were to recite the first lesson, he informed 
the teacher that he had studied his geography over five 
times the night before. The teacher rewarded this assidu- 
ity by letting him stand at the head of the class, although 
he was one of its smallest members ; but, to his surprise, 
in spite of all his studying, not a single question could he 
answer. He had simply read the words of his lesson, 



io6 The Country School 

and had not attempted to fix in his mind the ideas. Next 
day, from a humble position at the foot of the class, he 
did much better. 

A quarter of an hour before the morning recess, the 
writing books, which the teacher kept in her desk, were 
distributed, and the children got out their pens and un- 
corked their ink bottles, and proceeded to copy line after 
line of the mottoes at the head of each page. The smallest 
pupils exercised their ingenuity in making straight and 
curved lines with a lead pencil, or in tracing over the blue 
lines of printed copy, while the conscientious older ones 
gave their minds to putting in the flourishes and the shad- 
ing just right. Meanwhile the teacher walked about and 
kept lead pencils sharpened, gave advice as to what 
had best be done when a bad blot was made, or a page 
filled out ahead of time, and now and then sat down by 
a scholar and showed just how a particular bit should be 
written. The teacher usually had the children sit in a 
certain posture, and tried to have them take an easier 
position with their fingers than the stubby grip on pen 
or pencil that seemed to come natural. 

Occasionally, drawing was taught in the school, and 
every child had a brown-leaved drawing-book of the 
same oblong shape as the writing-books. On each leaf, at 
one side, were patterns to copy, with some printed matter 
explaining how it was to be done. First came straight 



1 




Sharpoiing one of the children s pencils 



1 



Later Characteristics 107 

lines and squares and circles, and gradually more com- 
plicated forms, solid bodies, vases, and flowers. In the 
book Charhe used, the final masterpiece was a bit of 
potato top in blossom. Potato plants he had always 
thought very homely as he saw them growing in the fields, 
but here it seemed really a thing of beauty. 

Many of the teachers had a few moments of gymnastics 
in school each session. The pupils stood by their desks 
to go through the various movements, and in the parts 
where there was stamping or hand-clapping, considerable 
enthusiasm was aroused in seeing how much noise could 
be made. In the bendings backward, forward, or side- 
ways there was always interest in determining just how 
far one could go, even though it endangered one's equiUb- 
rium ; and in the motions which called for a clenched 
fist there were those whose imaginations were stimulated 
to fancy themselves engaged in a pugilistic encounter. 
Such were particularly exhilarated when their fists came 
into semiaccidental encounter with a neighbor. ■ 

Singing found frequent place in the school exercises 
w^hen the teacher was herself gifted in that way. Gospel 
Hymns was the favorite book for selections on such occa- 
sions. Whatever the musical lacks of the performance 
were, the volume of sound could always be depended on 
to be fully up to the mark, when the song had a lively and 
easily caught movement. 



io8 



The Country School 



Teachers sometimes read to the scholars a Httle each 
day, or for an hour or so on Friday afternoons. One of 
CharHe's teachers read them an exciting book about In- 
dians and hunters, and for that reason Charhe thought 
her about the best teacher that ever was. The book 
was so fascinating that the scholars would gladly stay in 
at recess to hear it read. 

Punishments, as a whole, had become much milder 




A rainy-day school at home 



Later Characteristics 109 

than in the old days, and many teachers got along with- 
out any punishments that involved bodily pain or made 
the child a spectacle of supposed shame to his fellows. 
"Thrashings" w^re no more, but once in a great while 
a teacher would resort to feruling. The front seats and 
standing room on the floor were reserved for those who 
misbehaved, and there were occasions when it seemed 
necessary to keep a child in at recess or after school. 

There was a great difference in teachers. Some were 
in earnest and did careful, faithful work, but now and 
then there was one who was careless, and more interested 
in her own ease than in the scholars' progress. But a 
very poor teacher was not apt to stay long. The pupils 
were sure to report at home what she did and said, and 
when the tide of public sentiment set strongly against her, 
she had to leave. 

The garments the children wore were in patterns and 
materials much more varied than in times past, yet 
simpler than at present. The girls' waists, as compared 
with the modern fashion, were quite tight-fitting. Their 
stockings for a decade or more after the civil war were 
striped in narrow horizontal bars, or white, though the 
latter were usually reserved for Sundays and dress-up 
occasions. Later, black stockings became the rule. The 
girls wore their hair short until about the age of ten, 
and held it back from the forehead with a pliant, semi- 



no The Country School 

circular comb, or with a pretty ribbon an inch or so 
wide that passed from the back of the neck to the top 
of the head, where it was tied in a bow. 

Many of the boys and some of the girls inherited their 
elders' outgrown or worn-out clothes, which needed only 
a httle adjusting or making over to fit them for further 
duty. Short trousers began to come into vogue about 
1880, but the country folk were inclined to regard them 
as a town affectation not at all desirable for comfort or 
beauty, and a number of years passed before they were 
generally adopted. Hats, both straw and felt, were the 
common head covering for the boys, with roomy ear- 
lapped caps for winter, but at length close-fitting little 
caps became almost universal. At one time the boys 
used to have copper-toed and red-topped boots for winter 
wear, but, later, shoes and rubbers came into more general 
use. In summer most of the boys WTnt barefoot, and in 
the driest times it was agreeable to the boy to follow along 
the middle of the road on his way to school, stubbing up 
as big a cloud of dust as he knew how. Once in a while 
a girl went to school barefoot, but that was not the rule. 

Visitors were infrequent. When they did come, the 
scholars seemed to think they w'ould bear watching — 
at least they did watch them. The most important vis- 
itor was the chairman of the school committee. While 
he was there, the classes were all called out to give him 



Later Characteristics 



III 



an idea of the progress they were making. One thing 
he was sure to do in the reading lessons, after a child had 
read, was to ask, "Now what was it those people did 
whom you were reading about?" 




2 lie class in the Fifth Reader 

The boy turned to his book and started to repeat the 
words in the same sing-song manner as before. 

"No, no," said the committee-man, "shut your book, 
and tell me what they did." 

That accomplished, he would try to get the boy to read 
conversationally, instead of sing-song, but his success 



112 The Country School 

was not flattermg. Just before the committee-man left 
the scholars shuf^p their books and sat up straight' 
while the visitor rose, put his hands behind his back, and 
made some "remarks " to tliem. These were to the' pur- 
port that they should be tidy, and keep the room neat, 
and that it would be a great help to success in after-life 
to have good lessons and to learn to behave well. 

The oi^e.grand occasion of the term was "examination 
day." The schoolroom was swept out very clean the pre- 
ceding night, or perhaps well scrubbed with soap and 
water, so that a slight odor of soapiness and sense of 
dampness lingered all through the following day. The 
morning session was a short one, that the children might 
have plenty of time to eat dinner and dress themselves in 
their "Sunday-go-to-meetin's." They came in the after- 
noon very spick and span. Chairs were brought in from 
the neighbors', and a little mild play indulged in before the 
bell rang to call them indoors. Not much was done until 
the audience began to arrive, and an air of expectancy 
and solemnity brooded over the schoolroom. Women and 
very small children were the only visitors, usuallv, and it 
was before them that the scholars were called out to recite 
such things as they knew best, and possibly to speak a 
few pieces and read compositions. The visitors were 
further entertained by being allowed to examine the pupil's 
writing-books, and to look through the school register. 



Later Characteristics 113 

wherein each child's regularity of attendance was indi- 
cated, and where were put down the names of such callers 
as had been to the school. By and by there was a recess, 
where, of necessity, the play was not very vigorous, be- 
cause the children all had their best things on, in which 
they were less comfortable and free than usual, and which 
they felt under obligation to keep slick and clean. When 
school was finally dismissed for good and the scholars 
were out of doors, they rejoiced in a pandemonium of 
shoutings and waving of hats. 

They rejoiced because the school term had come to 
an end ; and yet what happier experiences does life bring 
than in the care-free days one spends in a Country School ? 



III -^h' ^ 






^m 


The good boy who is allowed to study out 0} 


doors 



V 

HOW THE SCHOLARS THINK AND WRITE 

HUMOR, it is said, consists in the unexpectedness 
of an idea or expression. Even a good joke 
heard a second time has lost something of its 
flavor; and a popular bit of slang, which originally may 
have had an agreeable tang about it, v^earies and disturbs 
by its frequent repetition. 

The thoughts of a child continually wander aside from 
the routine paths to which the minds of its elders are apt 
to confine themselves, and hence its speech and action are 
full of unconscious humor. Indeed, the humor must be 
unconscious to have any charm, for the child who tries 
to be funny is certain to make a dismal failure of it. Chil- 
dren are readily enkindled with interest and enthusiasm, 
and their thought at such times is often very happy and 
luminous. It many times runs far astray, but that does 
not make it less interesting. Nor is a wrong answer 
always indicative of dulness or poor teaching. It is as 
frequently due to brightness and originality. 

The child, when it begins to absorb our spoken language, 
finds the medley of sounds which it encounters, with all 

114 



How the Scholars Think and Write 115 

their different meanings, bewildering, and, as is to be ex- 
pected, often uses one word instead of another which to 
some degree resembles it. Children jump to conclusions 
even more frequently than grown-up people do — ■ which 
is saying a good deal — and they at times make a wild 
use of disconnected ideas that they have chanced to pick 
up ; but they at other times will make an explanation with 
a simplicity and patness that might well move the most 
learned to envy. 

In writing, children get badly entangled by the words 
which are not spelled as pronounced. They have a strong 
inclination to spell phonetically, but those queerly con- 




Writing 



ii6 



The Country School 



structed words they have learned haunt their minds and 
they sometimes spell one of the simple words the long 

way. Punctuation is like- 
wise a trouble to them. 
Usually they put in an 
occasional period, and 




may even venture to use 
a comma, but they are 
sparing in the use of 
both, and are inclined to 
avoid other marks alto- 
gether. Capitals are an- 
other disturbing element 
to the limpid flow of the 
child's thought when 
writing. Children, how- 
ever, are pretty sure to 
start with a capital and 
begin most sentences with 
one. A few are sprinkled 
in promiscuously, and if 
some are misplaced, oth- 
The looking-glass in the miry ^^^ ^j-g lacking elsewhere, 

so that the average is about right. A scientific division 
of the words which fall last on the lines the child is writing 
and still need room, is understood by few. Most put in 




How the Scholars Think and Write 117 

a hyphen after the final letter the line will contain, with 
entire independence of syllables, and begin the next line 
where they left off. Others avoid the dilemma by leaving 
a margin along the right border of the page, so that long 
words can run over into that without necessity for division. 
Still others turn such words downward along the edge till 
written out in a cramped fulness. 

The scholars are most entertaining and do their best 
when writing on a subject which engages their personal 
feeling and interest — something which is a part of their 
own. experience and observation. What they write of things 
far off is, as a rule, dry and stiff". Given such topics the 
children express themselves more correctly than when 
writing of things about home — ■ on the same principle 
that one does not stumble so often when walking sedately 
as when in enthusiastic haste. But culture comes from 
love of learning, not from present correctness of expres- 
sion, and the children undoubtedly gain far more in 
putting on paper what they have learned by sight and 
hearing than in writing out what they have gained from 
books. 

In the preceding chapter the ways of a rustic school 
in the little village of Riverbend were described. At this 
school on Friday afternoon, the final session of the week, 
the usual routine was abandoned for something more 
entertaining. On one such occasion the teacher read 



Il8 The Country School 

aloud to her scholars Longfellow's poem, "The Build- 
ing of the Ship," and the children listened attentively. 
They seemed to enjoy the story and the music of the poetry 
thoroughly. 




The second class in reading 

When the teacher finished reading, she distributed pen- 
cils and paper and said, "Now you may write the four 
lines of the poem that I will repeat to you; and I will 
read them very slowly one line at a time : — 

" Thou, too, sail on, O ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
We know what Master laid thy keel. 
What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel." 



How the Scholars Think and Write 119 

The slow ones had not yet done writing when the teacher 
noticed that May Tyler's hand was up, and gave her leave 
to speak. 

"Sometimes" — the little girl began, and then letting 
her eyes wander about among the other scholars, lost 
the thread of her intended remark. 

"What is it, 'sometimes'?" questioned the teacher. 

"Sometimes you let us draw a picture to go with what 
we write," was JNIay's response. 

"And would you like to draw a picture to go with what 
you have written to-day?" said the teacher. 

"Yes, yes!" exclaimed May and half a dozen of the 
others eagerly. 

"Well," the teacher said, doubtfully, "I don't know 
that I object, if you think you can do it." 

The children were sure they could, and the teacher 
gave them fresh slips of paper. She was curious to see 
what they would make out of the subject. A "ship of 
state" seemed to her to offer no chance for a picture. But 
the scholars bent intently to their task, and showed no 
signs of lack of inspiration. 

Now a hand went up. It was Tommy Halpin's. 
Tommy w^as one of the smaller children who sat on the 
front seats. His eyes were still on the paper w^hich con- 
tained his picture. When the teacher asked him what he 
wanted, Tommy said, "Can I put a name on my ship?" 



120 



The Country School 



"Yes," the teacher rephed, and Tommy printed it 
right on, and then, forgetting in his enthusiasm to ask 
permission, came trotting across the lloor to show his 
finished drawing to the teacher. 

She laughed a little when she saw Tommy's "ship of 
state," but she told him he had made a very good drawing. 

The vessel in his picture 
looked like a small two-masted 
sailboat, and its name, JOLLY 
JO, printed in mammoth let- 
ters that practically covered 
one side from stem to stem, 
seemed very well suited to 
such a craft. 

The ships of state dravm 
by the other children were of 
the same mild character, and there was not a war ship in 
the lot. May Tyler, who had proposed making the pic- 
tures, called her ship the BLUEBELL. She was the 
last to finish ; for she drew as a background a long moun- 
tain range, with the sun coming up over it. Hers was an 
open boat without a deck, but she explained she had to 
draw it that way in order to show its "ribs of steel," which 
she had made very plain and black. 

The teacher thought the drawings spirited in their 
way ; but she was not altogether pleased to have the ship 




Tow my' s ship 




How the Scholars Think and Write 121 

of state appear so uniformly as a pleasure craft, and she 
took pains to explain to the children the real meaning 
of the extract they had 
written. In conclud- 
ing she had each pupil 
draw a United States 
flag on their vessels, 

and this established 

An illustration by one of the little girls 
a certain relationship 

with the sentiment of the verse the picture illustrated, 
though they were still more humorous than impressive. 

What I have related of this Friday afternoon was char- 
acteristic of most of the other Friday afternoons, and in the 
pages which follow I give various examples of the chil- 
dren's off-hand writing and illustrating, and a list of 
definitions garnered from their spelling lessons. 



DEFINITIONS 

A dwarf is one that holds up a lady's train. 

Sister : If there was a girl and she lived at your house 
and she was your mother's daughter, then she would be 
your sister. 

Missionary: One who makes hats. One who surveys 
land. 

The missionaries went to invert the Indians. 



122 



The Country School 



Remember means to know afterwards what you know 
now. 

Some kinds of pouUry are chickens, hens, and lambs. 

A territory is a small place down in a valley. 

Cutlery is knives, forks, and sewing-machines. 

Work is keeping at something all the time. 

Trouble is having something that you don't like. 

History is studying an examination. 

Crying is shidding tears. 

News is to hear something that we have not heared 
before. 

Scholars are children studying. 

Work is to help the poor ; that is the best of work. 




A hillside schoollwuse 



How the Scholars Think and Write 123 

If there was a poor old lady living alone, it would be 
kindness to do her work. 

History is a study of the United States. 

History is a history telling about olden times. 

History tells about wars. 

History is a book that the scholars study about. 

News is to here things. 

News is when anything new happens. 

To be contented is to have everything you want. 

Contented means to be happy wherever you are. 

Contented is when you have enough. 

You are contented when you are asleep. 

To cry is to feel very bad. 

Work means to do something hard. 

Bussy is when you have a lot of work to do. 

A laugh is when you are happy. 

Vegitables are all kinds of fruit. 

The diameter of the earth was Noah's dove. 

Colors are different shades. 

Study is to learn. 

Arithmetic is to do different sums. 

Arithmetic is used to trade with. 

Fire is very hot and the color of red. 

A picture is to repersent anything. 

A picture is something that looks like what it was drawn 
from. 



124 The Country School 

A picture is something to look at. 

Writeing is made of ink and lead. 

Write is to talk with letters. 

Paper is to right. 

Reading is talking. 

An animal is something that has 4 or more legs. 

An animal is a cow who gives milk. 

Animals are made of ilesh and bones. 

Dirt is something we could not live without. 

An oasis is a desert place. 

An oasis is a flock of trees in a desert. 

A gizzard is where the gravel goes. 

A gizzard is a kind of fowl. 

Bacon is a streak of lean and fat. 

Shoulder is the joints of animals which holds them up. 

A favor is to do something good. 

Henpecked means to be governed by your wife. 

Flowers are a vegitable. 

Favor is a bottle of water that smells good. 

Favor means when you tell some one to go after some- 
thing and they go. The one that asks the boy is the one 
who does the favor. 

Favor is w^hen a boy does something for his mother. 

A flag is what you wave. 

Metal is a stone. 

Metal is something good to wear. 



How the Scholars Think and Write 125 

A city is a large place. 

A city is a lot of buildings. 

A city is a place where they sell groceries. 

A city is a place where they sell grain for horses and 
cows. 

Desire means to know everything. 

\'elvet means the fur on a cat's car. 

Whisker means a hair on a cat's mouth. 

Noiseless means to make a little noise. 

Spkled means little dogs. 

Toothsome means hard. 

Almonds are a kind of pudding. 

Occupations of people in Hadley: Farming, grinding, 
making broomes, keep store, keep postotlice, make whips, 
make candy, they bild houses, they eat, they drink. 

Luncheon means to eat between meals. 

Feast means to have a good deal. 

Sky is made up of fog. 

The sky is where the moon and sun is. 

Air is a good deal like weather. 

Air is wind. 

Air is what you breave. 

Eat is to make your jaws go. 

Eat means the digestion of food. 

To eat is to swallow anything. 

To eat is to satisfy your appetite. 



126 



The Country School 




When the door is locked 

A whip is something good to hck horses with 

A mountain is lots of trees. 

A mountain is a big pile of dirt. 

Money is a round and has a sign on it. 



Home is the 
place of your par- 
ents. 

Home is you's 
house. 

Calendars are 
made of paper 
and numbers. 

Calendars are 
used in telling 
how warm and 
cold it is. 

Fruits is a bige 
apples is a red and 
it is about bigs as a 
pair that is sweet. 

A fruit is some- 
thing that comes 
on a tree. 

A whip is a 
stick and a lash 
on the end of it. 



How the Scholars Think and Write 127 

Money is to by things with. 

Sky is clouds. 

Sky is air. 

Sky is something that the rain falls out of. 

Weather is rain or shine. 

Eat means your mouth. 

Play means when you are running around and hiding 
behind trees and houses. 

Roasts is a part of a cow. 

The cattle products of South America are hides, tallow, 
and silver. 

They have stews at boarding-houses. 

Government is the governor. 

Fiercely is very uggly. 

Ditches is a hole. 

Destroy means to have a book tored up. 

Pitfalls means to pitty anybody. 

Suddenly meanes that think she will die. 

Pounces means to jump up on a cat or anything. 

The number of people on the earth was the reason for 
its being flattened at the poles. 

Greedy means to eat some food away from another. 

Eager is to watch and see what another eats. 

Ravenous means hurry. 

Extravigrant means to use all the money you can. 

Lonesome means to have somebody gone away. 



128 The Country School 

Carelessly means to lose a child. 
Invitation means to go to a house to eat. 
Business-like is a man that works. 
Bordered is to have everything in. 
Daughter is a man's girl. 
Enter is to go to the school house. 
Unlike is to be puplitc to anybody. 
A ball is made out of leather and stufhns. 
A bell is used to commence school with. 
Dictionary is where they keep all the words people 
don't know. 

Carelessly is not to be careless. 

The almanac is to look up things with. 

The almanac tells the date of the year. 

Earth is ground. 

A ball is to through. 

Pair is to eat. 

Pare is shoes. 

A book is a thing that has a stitT cover. 

A bill is when you owe somebody. 

Paint is something red. 

Paint is a yellow color. 

The sun is a thing that shines in my eyes. 

A blotter is some ink and is on the paper. 

Income is to come in. 

Income means to go to a house. 




Helping a little one on with her things 



How the Scholars Think and Write 129 

Passion means to pass a car. 
Trading is to biy things. 
An elf is a small animal. 
A sheaf is any bundle. 
Huge means to feel bad. 
Leaf is any thin piece. 

A bell is something to ring made of tin and iron. 
Almanac is a book with pictures in it. 
The almanac shows us when it is going to rain and 
when there is going to be a knew moon. 
Pair is a fruit that grows on a tall tree. 

CONFESSIONS OF A BAD BOY WHO REFORMED 

I was a cureious little boy when I first went to school 
I dident hke to go anyway. I would torment the teacher 
the worst kind and I would do every thing that she dident 
want me to do and if she wanted me to do a thing I would- 
ent do it and she got so mad with me she would shut me 
up in the closit but that dident do no good. I would 
get out of the window and go home, when I got up to 
read I would say whatever came into my mind and she 
would send me to my seat, and I would sit and laugh 
over it like a monkey but she thought she would try a 
new rule to be sure, she would give me a good whipping 
with the ruelar when I dident mind, that I got use to 
after a while and didient mind it when I came to school 



130 



The Country School 



in the winter time I would bring snow in on my feat she 
would tell me to go back out. I was so cold I dident want 

to and she would 
give me a good 
shaking and I 
iked it beau- 
cause it warmed 
me up. the next 
teacher we got 
was better than 
the first one she 
I hked very 
much she would 
give a card every 
night when I 
The teacher gives one oj the boys a shaking w'cnt home and 
{Drawn by the hoy) ^^^ ^^j^ j ^^.^^ 

the best boy in school. I carraid my dinner to school, 
there was a big tree near the school house us boys would 
get up in the tree to eat our dinners one of the boys 
■got out to far on the limb and it broke and he fell but he 
loged on a nother limb down a little ways. 




A U 



Af. Z-^. 



How the Scholars Think and Write 131 

POETRY 

Composed on the 26th day of February. 

We heard 
A bhie bird 
This morning 
As a warning 
That spring is near 
And is all most here. 

A LETTER 

Harry made a tobogain Sataday. and we had som 
slides it was very very coald and it sleud so that we went 
down the hill backwards. 

We have a new hierd man his name is Robert he 
seams a verry good man so far. 

I can scate alone but I fall down a good many times. 
We scate on a pond opersite the male box. 

It snowed yesterday and rained hard in the night, 
and so we have a crust and the trees look like glass ones 
and they look so graceful and pretty i carnt posably 
discrib them, every thing is beautyful. 

We go to school now and the week slips by so fast that 
we find sataday in the middle of the week so we should 
think. We doant find much time to waist. 



132 The Country School 

To day I had to see how many seconds it took me to 
add 8+9 + 5 + 4 + 8 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 6 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9. 
it took me 30. but I did not get it wright. 

Harry choped of a piece of a log of sHpcry elm yester- 
day and we pealed it and ate some. 

Aunt Sahra is a bed with a headake. I have bin sow- 
ing on a soing machine. 

Laura. 

P.S. this is the largest letter I ever rote. 
P.S. You did not say any thing about my last letter 
so i think it was rite. 



^£/i^C9^>c^yl^ 



OUT CAMPING. — A STORY 

Once there was a boy who was very rich he become 
so rich he bought the world. One day he was out camp- 
ing he throught he would go out f hishing so he got in 
one of the boats, he saw some whales down to the lower 
end of the river so he throught he would catch one, so 




How the Scholars Think and Write 133 

rowed dowTi to them, be four he got down there one 
came and upset the boat, and he swoUow him and the 
boat floated down the river, so one day his mother came 
down to the camp, so she went out in the boat and throught 
she would catch one and she caught one and put it in the 
boat it eat her up and the boat floated down the river 
into the ocen 

COMPOSITIONS 

Jack Frost 

Jack frost never comes out in the summer. But in 

the winter he is out every day then he bit our toes and 

finger. When he is here we can have a lot of fun here 

are some of the thing that we can do when 

he is here sligh down hill, make snow balls, 

get sleight ride, get our feet wet. But when 

he is gone we can have a lot of fruit, these 

are some of the fruits pears apples cherry 

'A schoolboy 

graps. We can not have any of thoes thing 
in the winter. In the winter time we have more fun than 
in the summer. We can go scaking on the rivers. Some 
times Jack Frost does not freez the w^ater hard enought 
so we go into the water and get wet. Jack Frost makes 
our feet wet so when we take off our shoes they stick to 
our feet and so when he get up in the morning we have a 
hard time geting them on. 




134 The Country School 

Trees 

Trees grow in the ground. A tree is tall, it bears a 
good many kinds of friut one is apples another is pears. 
My apples trees do not b^'ar any fruit, but they are yoused 
for shad trees and to get the sap to use. Trees are very 
useful. In the fall the leaves of Maple turn into a pretty 
collor red that makes it look pretty. In the winter 
the leaves fall off of the trees and leav them bear. When 
the leaves fall off people rake them up, and use them for 
beding. In the spring the trees commence to leaf out. 
Trees look dead in the winter, and in the summer they 
do not look dead but bright and leaves on them. When 
trees are dead they have no leaves on them and do not bear 
any fruit, so people cut them down. Trees look pretty 
and bear fruit when they are alive, but when they are dead 
they do not look pretty or bear fruit. I think I have 
ritten quite enough so I think I had better stop. 

Chipmunks 

A chipmunks are very prety. And thare are a graite 
menny of them. xAnd they eat chestnuts and walnuts 
and butternuts, and they live in the woods i think I 
have seen one. they are striped, the huntters catch 
them, they store thare food away to eat in the winter, 
they are about as small as a good sized rat. we see them 



How the Scholars Think and Write 135 

in the fall, they live in an old roten trunks of trees, 
they never come out in the winter 

I can not think of enny think elce so I will stop Mary 
Smith. 




Facsimile oj one oj the youngest scJiolars^ manuscripts 



Fish 

Fish are good to eat. They live in water in fresh water 
and salt water, in ponds brocks. In rivers lakes At- 
lantic Ocean to. We catch them with hooks and line. 
Fish swim with fins and tail to. Some have no eyes in 
caves. Sometimes fish eat other fish. Fish eat insects. 



136 The Country School 

Going to School 

I like to go to school. I like to study in my books. 
I am in the third reader and Arithmetic and Geogeraphy. 
the school is made of brick and we sing. My teacher 
dose haft to write songs on the boart and then we learn 
them and sing the song I have a little work to do at home. 
Be fore I go to school I have to wash my face and hands 
and change my dress and put on my hat and coat and start 
off for school. And when any body sayis enny sentes 
that has aint I poot it on the bord and leave it ther till 
night and then rase it. We have a tree a little awayes 
from the school house and it is a good tree to it is a tree 
that dose shade the hose nise. We have four girls in 
school nine boys in school. We have in school five black 
boards in school, the boards are about full every moning. 
the schoolers want to go to the boards and write ther 
words We draw at school every fridday. We have but 
one teacher. We have some floer seeds in the bed And I 
must tell about what is in the floer bed There are peonies 
poppies, sweet peaes, scarlet beanes, moring glories lark- 
spur, gladioli, holly, hocks. 

And that is what we have got in the floer bed. And 
what we play at recess is Kings-land and squart-tag and 
stone-tag and wood-tag and hide and cop. 



How the Scholars Think and Write 



137 




The perils 0} the early settlers 



Mis Hap 

As I was driveing in the corn-field to smooth off the 
field to plant. 

I turn round to short and the horses turn around and 
round tell they tip the smoother up endways and I fell 
under it and the horses got fritting and ran home They 
was a nother man tried to stop them and his ran a way 
up to the barn 

I haller whoa but they did not stop till they reach the 
barn. Then we came runing af the them. When they 
got to the barn they tried to get in the door. They did 
not get in the door the pepol in the house thought they 
was a team coming in the yard and they went to the door 
and saw the horses come full speed. 

The peopl in the house wear scart but they ran out caught 

thores by the bridle, the swet ran off of one hores legs 

and I througt he was bleeding. I back the hores out 

of the barn and shith them up and took them down to 

the modow again. 

The End. 



1 3^ The Country School 

Great Funs at School 

Our school begins at nine Oclock. We first have sincr- 
ing & then comes the lessons There aint but three boys 
in school larg enough to play ball so we generaly play 
Kingsland I live only about a quarter of a mile from 
the school house so I go home to diner. At reces in the 
afternoon now it is so hot that we do'nt do any thing but 
talk. In June our school lets out for a long vacation. 
Then in the fall the school begins again. & it is cooler 
so that we play hide & coop squat tag etc. Then the 
chestnuts begin to get ripe & our teacher gives us a day 
to go chestnuting. Then it begins to get cold & we hang 
around the stove to keep warm. Then the snow begins 
to come & we have great fun sliding down hil. There is 
a large hill in frunt of the school house & we go down so 
fast that it takes your breth away When it gets very 
cold & the ice begins to freze we skate up & down the 
pond like the wind. When it snows & covers the pond 
we take a shovel & broom & clean it off Then after a 
while it begins to get warm & the ice begins to get weak. 
And one day when we were skating the ice cracked like 
every thing & one of the boys got in but we did not stop 
skating becaus we thought it would soon be over & it 
was soon over & it was all slush & mud. And we made 
a raft and floated around in the water & had great fun. 



How the Scholars Think and Write 139 

After a while the water came up very high & the teacher 
had to come to school in a boat. & we had great fun 
catching flood wood The water came up so high that 




1 he .scliDo/hoiise in jioad-tiDir 

some of the houses were fluded But it did not last long 
& then it came around to hot wether again. 

Vacation 

In vacation we have lots of fun and lots of works first 
comes the seeds to be sowed then the potatoes and corn 
to be planted. Then comes the weeding and hoeing to 
be done. I do not like to weed onions it is a tiresome 
job to be bending over all day and almost breaks my 



140 The Country School 

back. 2nd picking strawberries is also a tiresome job 
mutch like weeding onions. But work is not all of the 
vacation there is some play such as playing base ball 
Hide-and-go-seek kingsland foot ball etc. Now playing 
base ball is a very good game but you are apt to get hurt 
such as spraining your finger smashing your teeth etc. 
the best of kings-land is the geting the one who is it on to 
the oposite side and pull his hair, foot ball is a very ruff 




w ^ M 



A hay field 

game in which boys are hurt quite often. Next comes the 
haying we begin haying about the 22 of June that is 
our first haying first the grass is to be mowed then it is 
to be shook out then turned over a cuple of times then 
raked up then loaded into the wagon then tosed into the 
bay and it is done. Then comes the second hoeing not 
so hard as the first but hard enough for me. Then the 
second haying not as good a crop as the first and the hay 
is mad just as the first crop which I told you about. Then 



How the Scholars Think and Write 141 

comes the potatoes to be dug then picked up and put in to 
the cellar. Then the corn to be cut and then husked and 
carried to the barn then the stalks to be cut up and made 
ready for the cows to feed on during the winter. Then 
the other vegitables to be got into the cellar such as the 
squash pumpkin onions etc. But to take it away through 
I think I had rather have vacation than school. 




Blackboard drawings: "a farmer, his Utile girl, and his wije" 



VI 
SCHOOLHOUSE ENTERTAINMENTS 

IN the central villages of the country towns it is 
possible during the leisure of the winter months 
to get up social diversions that are quite grand. 
But to whatever dazzling height of attraction these may 
attain, I doubt if they ever have the charm and natural- 
ness to be found in the schoolhouses of the outlying 
hamlets. The characteristic gathering is one where, 
aside from the enjoyment afforded by the meeting of neigh- 
bors in friendly converse, there is a programme including 
recitations, music, and possibly a dialogue. The items 
of such a programme are handled with more style in the 
larger places, but in the ornate town celebrations the 
individuality that glows from each participant in the 
schoolhouse merry-makings is apt to get smoothed out 
into mannerism. 

Of course, in certain ways the isolation of an outlying 
hamlet is a handicap, and it is apt to be a source of regret 
to the inhabitants. They are largely dependent on them- 
selves for diversion ; and yet if this results in their putting 
forth extra efforts to make the local life pleasant and 
interesting, the isolation may be a blessing in disguise. 

142 



Schoolhouse Entertainments 



143 



In the attempt to brighten the long winter evenings, 
there are various social gatherings at the homes ; but the 
schoolhouse is the place of meeting on the more important 
occasions, and the children of the school furnish the back- 
bone of these rustic 
festivities. The liter- 
ary material on which 
the children draw for 
subjects is often artifi- 
cial or commonplace; 
yet they themselves 
are so sure to be en- 
tertaining and original 
that you readily for- 
get the respects in 
which their perform- 
ance falls short of a 
technical ideal. They 
each have a piece to 
speak; and in addi- 
tion to that, all of Trimming the Christmas tree 

them together come out on the floor several times and 
form in rows with the teacher beside them, and sing such 
songs as they have learned. They depend a great deal 
on their teacher; for she picks out the verses for them 
to memorize, drills them, and when thev stand before the 




144 



The Country School 



audience, she is near at hand ready to prompt when 
they forget the words. 

The audience always takes special pleasure in listening 
to a spicy and picturesque dialogue; but space limita" 

tions and the difficulty 
of managing a lot of 
children, full of excite- 
ment over the glory of 
the occasion, make it 
unwise to attempt any- 
thing very elaborate. 
It is not, however, easy 
to find dialogues that 
will fit the need of the 
schoolhouse either in 
matter or manner. 
What is wanted is some- 
thing short, requiring 
few actors, and having 
a homely quaintness of 
expression and of situa- 
tions that shall be pleasant and natural from the child's 
point of view. Sometimes a dialogue from a book or 
magazine can be cut down and adapted ; but the two little 
plays which follow were written for the occasions when 
they were acted, and they were produced with entire suc- 




Speaking his piece 



^t^ 




^ 



Schoolhouse Entertainments 145 

cess. By that I do not mean there was no bkindering. 
The mistakes and accidents were half the fun, and were ap- 
plauded as heartily as that which was done most cleverly. 
Whatever the lacks of the performers, the dialogues them- 
selves are of a sort that seemed excellently suited to the 
place. A corner of the schoolroom was curtained off and 
fitted up in the rude likeness of a room in an old-fashioned 
farmhouse. At the back of the apartment was an open 
fireplace made of a drygoods box, with the inside roughly 
painted to imitate smoke-blackened bricks. Several an- 
cient chairs were scattered about, and there was a cot- 
bed, a bureau, lamp, and clock. The first of the dialogues 
was acted at a Christmas celebration, the other on the 
evening of Washington's Birthday. The former was 
entitled 

CHRISTMAS NIGHT 
CHARACTERS 

Sanla Clans, with white beard and big fur coat. 
Tommy ] brothers, the first seven, and the second nine 
Freddy j years, old. 

Tommy (pawing out the contents of a bureau drawer). 
Well, I don't see where ma put those stockings. No, 
they ain't here. 

Freddy. We'll have to make the old ones do, then. 



H6 The Country School 

I don't know what Santa Claus'll think of us for hanging 
up such things. See there, now! {Runs his arm into 
the long stocking, and his fingers come out sprawling 
through a hole at the other end.) 




A hunt for sioc/^ings 

Tommy. The presents that Santa Claus puts in'll all 
tumble out at the bottom. Here, you stop that, Freddy ! 
You're tearing the hole bigger. 

Freddy. We'll have to tie up that hole to make the stock- 
ing any good. Got any string, Tommy ? 



Schoolhouse Entertainments 



147 



Tommy. I guess so. {Pulls a lot of things out of his 
pockets and puts them on the bureau.) Yes, there's some. 
Now you hold the stocking, and I'll tie it up. 

Freddy (as they do the tying). Tommy, what do you say 
to stayin' up and ketchin' old Santa Claus just after he 
has come down the chimney and is tilling our stockings ? 

Tommy. I don't believe we could do it. He doesn't 
come till twelve o'clock, and we'd get to sleep before then, 
even if we was to try our hardest to keep awake. 

Freddy. I'll tell you how we can fix the business. 
There's the alarm-clock. Set it to go off at twelve, 
and that'll bring our eyes open in no time. We'll turn 




Making ready )or Santa Claus 



14^ The Country School 

the hght dowTi and go to bed with our clothes on, and so 
be all ready to pop out on the old fellow. 

Tommy. Good for you, Freddy ! That's just the thing. 
You hang up the stockings and put up the signs we made, 
and I'll wind the alarm. {Freddy hangs the stockings 
on some nails at either side of the fireplace, and next to one 
pair of stockings adjusts a placard on which he has lettered 
his name, and ?iext to the other pair a similar placard which 
hears Tonimy^s name. Meanwhile, Tommy winds the 
alarm.) 

Freddy. But what are we going to do with Santa Claus 
when we ketch him? 

Tommy. I hadn't thought of that. We'll have to make 
some kind of an excuse, 'cause he might get mad. 

Freddy. I know ! We just want to find out if there 
really is a Santa Claus. We'll tell him what Sammy 
Tompkins said about there not being any Santa, and he'll 
say we did exactly right. 

Tommy. That's so, I guess he will. Well, turn down 
the lamp and we'll go to bed. There, crawl in. Now, 
let's see who'll snore first. {Both fall to imitating snoring 
and they laugh a little and kick about, but soon quiet into 
sleep.) 

Santa Claus. {Comes in softly.) All right. Everybody 
sleeping. Well, well, stockings all labelled. That's 
thoughtful. I don't need my spectacles to read this 



Schoolhouse Entertainments 



149 



lettering ! {Puts dozen Jiis sack and from it fills the stock- 
ings. Just as he finishes doing this, the alarm goes off; 
that is, some one behind the curtain sets off a clock at the 
proper moment. Santa tumbles in great terror to the 



^H 


1 


^H 




PH 


|H 


HI 


1 


S^S^iKS? 


1 


. ^ 


^1 


K 

" 


i 


9 


1 


^^B^S^^i^S 


B 




1 


in 


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B 




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The boys go to bed 

fioor.) Great Ctesar's cats! what was that? In all the 
ten thousand years, more or less, that I've travelled up 
and down this old world, I've never heard anything like 
that. Must have been a new invention or an earthquake. 
(Looks about fearfully.) 

Tommy. {He has risen on his elbon' and speaks in a 
whisper.) There's Santa. He acts kind o' scared. 

Freddy {also in a whisper). Now's our time, then ! 

BotJi Boys. [They jump from the bed, dash across the 
fioor, and grab Santa Claus by the shoulders.) There, 
we've got you ! 



150 



The Country School 




Caught 

Santa Clans. Why, what's the matter? Hold on, 
hold on ! 

Tommy. Yes, we'll hold on. We've got you ! 

Santa Claus {getting up). Well, now, what are you 
boys after, anyway ? What was that noise I heard ? 

Freddy. {He hangs on to one oj Santa s hands, ivhile 
Tommy dings to the other.) Oh, that was nothin'. It was 
just one of these little alarm-clocks to wake up by. 

Santa Claus. Was that all? I thought the earth had 
cracked and was going to pieces. But what has got 
into you boys to come pitching on to me the way you 
did? 

Tommy. Why, we just wanted to know if there was a 



Schoolhouse Entertainments 



151 



Santa Claus or not. That's all. Sammy Tompkins said 
there wa'n't. But we knew there was. 

Santa Claus. Of course there is. Don't you see all 
those things I've put in your stockings, and don't you see 



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 


w^- 


fff 




■ ^^^- ■■ 


Wi 


^hH 


^HL^^^^Ku ^a| 


1 


■ 




P^^B! 


H 



Santa faces tlie audience 



that tree all loaded ? Well, boys, I can't stop any longer. 

{Shakes hands.) I wish you a Merry Christmas {turns 

toward the audience), and I wish you all a Merry Christmas. 

{Curtain) 



( 



152 The Country School 

WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY 

CHARACTERS 

Ephraini, a farmer. ] Boys dressed as 

Jabez, a neighbor of Ephraim's. J old men. 

John, dressed as Washington — the tallest and oldest 
boy of a group of children. 

Susy, a girl dressed as Martha Washington. 

Polly, one of the smaller girls dressed as a little Es- 
kimo. 

r Dressed as a German. 
I 
Dressed as a Dude. 

Dressed as an Indian. 

Dressed as an Irishman. 

. Dressed as an Italian. 



Other 
Children 



The only things bought for the occasion were the beards 
of the two old men. The rest of the material for costumes 
was hunted up in home closets and garrets. Often there 
was no very close resemblance attained to the characters 
represented, but there was always a sincere attempt to get 
a distinct individuality, and the result was in every instance 
satisfactorily entertaining. The scene was made to bear 
some resemblance to an old-time farmhouse kitchen, 
with an open fireplace and straight-backed chairs. This 
setting, even in its crudities, was much to the liking of 




Going to the woods jor Ike Christmas tree 



Schoolhouse Entertainments 153 

the children who were the actors, and they went through 
the play effectively, where they would have failed, had 
it been something finer that was outside the range of their 
experience. The touch of the grotesque in the names and 
conversation and general get-up of the old men appealed 
strongly to the children's imaginations, as did also the 
masquerade costuming of the other characters. 

Ephraim. {Seated by his fireside reading a paper. 
Yawns.) Oh hum ! I'm gettin' sleepy so early. If the 
children wa'n't away, I'd wind the clock and go to bed. 
{Slow, heavy footsteps are heard outside. Ephraim rises 
stiffly and stands expectant, while Jabez enters.) What ! 
that you, Jabez? Glad to see you. {They shake hands, 
and Ephraim resumes his chair.) Have a seat, Jabez, 
have a seat. 

Jabez. Well, I will in a minute, when I get warmed up. 
Kind o' shivery out to-night. {Takes off his hat and 
stands with his back to the fire.) Where's Israel and 
Maria? 

Ephraim. Oh, they packed up yesterday and went 
dowTi to Boston to spend a week visitin' some of Maria's 
relatives that live there. 

Jabez. Sho ! they did, did they? Hadn't heard of it ! 

Ephraim. Yes, and they perposed that the children 
should go over to stay with their uncles and aunts at 
the Corners so I could go to Boston, too. But I told 'em 



154 The Country School 

they wouldn't ketch me kitin' off so far at my age. Might 
get killed or something, you know. 

Jabes. That's so ! Don't take much to get killed now- 
adays. Keeps you pretty busy, I s'pose, lookin' after the 
children and all the housework and barnwork besides? 

Ephraim. Well, the children are gettin' old enough to 
help more'n you'd think — John, especially. He's most 
as good as a man about the work outdoors. To-night 
they've all gone off somewhere. 

Jabez. Didn't they tell you where they was goin' ? 

Ephraim. No. Said 'twas a secret. It's some school 
party, like enough. They hitched into the pung right after 
supper and off they went, the whole bilin' of 'em. I 
don't know as I ought to 'a' let little Jim and Polly go; 
but John promised faithful to see to 'em and get 'cm home 
airly. 

Jabez. Well, they all stopped over to our house. That's 
the way I happened to drop in. They kep' at me to step 
over here an' see you, sayin' you'd be lonesome and one 
thing and another, until I come. 

Ephraim. Ha, ha ! they're up to some rinktum or 
other, I'll be bound. But set do\\Ti, Jabez. 

Jabez. {Seating himself and holding out his hands 
toward the blaze.) Fire feels good a cold night like this. 

Ephraim. So't does, and I guess I'd better be puttin' 
on another stick. There ain't many has these roarin' 



Schoolhouse Entertainments 155 

open fires in these times. You ain't had nothin' over to 
your place but stoves these twenty years, have you? 




Comfort by the open fire 

Jabez. No, all our fireplaces was bricked up long ago. 
What's that ? {Straightens up, and looks toward the 
window.) I thought I heard sleigh bells tumin' into the 
yard. 

Ephraim. Sounds like the pung, but the children wouldn't 
be comin' back yet-awhile. 

Jabez. I ain't dressed up for company ! 

Ephraim. I ain't neither, nor the house ain't ! (Both 
get up nervously. Outside there are cries of "Whoa, 
whoaT' followed by a stamping of feet and then a rap at 



156 



The Country School 



the door.) Well, there they be, whoever 'tis ! {Steps toward 
the door, when a crowd oj children in costume burst in.) 

John. {Dressed as Washington.) Wish you both a 
Merry Christmas ! 

Ephraim. Is that you, John? What you up to any- 
way ? 'Tain't Christmas ! 

Children. Well, it's Washington's Birthday ! 

Ephraim. Is it ? I declare, I believe it is. I'd forgot. 




The children surprise I heir grandpas 

Polly. {Dressed as a little Eskimo.) This is a s'prise 
party. Grandpa ! 

Jabez. {Nudges Ephraim.) She's a cute one. 

John. Yes, that's what it is, and we dressed up to 



Schoolhouse Entertainments 157 

represent a few characters for you. We tried to make 
some poetry to speak ; but when it rhymed it wa'n't sense, 
and when it was sense it wa'n't poetry. So we give that 
up mostly, and we'll have to tell you straight out what 
we are. Now, I'm General Washington, the father of 
his country, first in peace, first in war, and first in the hearts 
of his countrymen. 

Susy. And I'm Martha, his wife, mother of her country, 
second in peace, second in war, and second in the hearts 
of her countrymen. That's what John said. 

Jabez. Well, I don't know but you be ! I hadn't 
thought of that. 

The German. I came from Germany to help make this 
great country. 

The IrisJiman. I came from Ireland to help make this 
great country. 

The Italian. And I came from Italy to help make this 
great country. {Suspended from his shoulders he carries 
a box with a leg under neat Ji, a cloth over the top, and a 
crank attached to make it look like a hand-organ. Turns 
the crank while some one behind the curtain plays " Yankee 
Doodle" on a comb or harmonica.) 

The Dude. Where I came from there's no one knows, 
But I'm an American, I suppose. 
(After he speaks he marches across the stage and back, takes 
off his stovepipe hat and makes a low bow to the audience.) 



158 



The Country School 



Polly. I'm a little Eskimo 

From the land of cold and snow. 
All the children. We all help make the nation, 
And accept the invitation 
Of this country good and free 
A part of it to be. 
Jahez. You done well, children, and your grandfathers 
are both proud of you, ain't we, Ephraim? 

Ephraim. Sartain, sartain, we are that, and I'm goin' 
to skirmish around in the buttery and see if I can't find 
some refreshments. But first let's join in a hearty cheer 
for Washington and Liberty ! 

All. Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! 
{Curtain) 




Companions 



3U77-2 



